Somewhere Down the Tracks
by Gage93
Summary: Set between season's five and six. Casefile. Grissom and Sara head out on a road trip to work a case in Caliente, Nevada. G/S.
1. Chapter 1

**Somewhere Down the Tracks**

**Disclaimer: **I do not own CSI, its characters or anything affiliated.

**A/N:** Taking us back to that time between season's five and six when there was the promise Grissom and Sara and not what there is now. I thought I was done with CSI but I've had this idea for years and it really wanted to come out so in the end, I succumbed. I do also plan on finishing Nine Lives (having trouble finishing the one life, but have been writing the last life, so when I finally get to it, it should be smooth sailing).

**Somewhere down the tracks**

**Chapter 1**

Her apartment seemed small. Too small to sit and finish that James Patterson novel she was reading. Too small to pace around without running into some piece of furniture or another. Too small to contain the incredible amount of glee bubbling up with in her.

Things had just been getting back to normal. Nick had been released from the hospital. Ecklie had met with Grissom and Catherine about putting the old team back together on Grave. She and Greg had just closed an investigation where a grifter had been pulling a charity scam, a case that was light and fun and, along with Greg's antics, had distracted her from everything else that had been going on recently.

But it wasn't the return to normal that had her fidgeting in her apartment. Gilbert Grissom had kissed her. Had taken her and Greg to breakfast after work, given her a ride home, stopped in her apartment's underground lot, leaned across the seat and kissed her. Then he had blushed and she had blinked, and he had glanced at her expectantly, then smiled softly and so shyly and told her he would see her later. She hadn't been able to respond, not without risking the loss of that wonderful tingling sensation on her lips. Instead, she'd only nodded and left him with the widest grin she'd sported in years.

That he needed time to digest what he had done after all this time was no great surprise. She needed time to digest it. Why now? Did it have anything to do with Nick? Would it change things? Of course it was going to change things, but in the way that she longed for?

The phone rang, interrupting her musings. Checking the call display, a small smile slipped over her lips at the sight of Grissom's name glowing on the screen. "Miss me already?" she asked and immediately regretted it. What if he was phoning for an entirely different reason? A reason completely opposite than what she'd just blurted out?

"I always miss you when you're not around, Sara," he said softly, and she felt her smile reappear. There was a quiet sigh on the other end of the line, and then his voice came across slightly louder, "But that's not why I'm calling."

"No?" she asked and leaned against the kitchen counter. "What's up?"

His voice almost sounded regretful when he responded. "419, out by Caliente."

Sara looked at the clock. It was just after 11 am. Technically the case should go to Days, but Days was likely tapped out. Warrick and Catherine had come off of working a double from their shift, and with all the staff changes between Grave and Swing, Grissom probably thought it might be easiest to volunteer her. "Sure," she replied, keeping her voice light and upbeat. "I'm always up for a road trip."

"Good. I'll pick you up in about a half hour."

"You'll pick me up?"

"Isn't your car still at the lab?"

Sara bit her lip. Her car was still at the lab. She'd hopped on in with Greg on the way to breakfast, thinking they'd head back to the lab after, but then Grissom had offered her that ride home and whatever she had been planning on doing back at the lab got lost in the thought of spending just a little alone time with Grissom. "Uh, yeah, it is."

"Wasn't much forethought on either of our parts."

Sara smiled. "No, I guess it wasn't."

"That's alright. We only need to take one vehicle to Caliente anyways. I'll swing by the lab and pick up a Denali, unless you need to swing by the lab yourself on the way out."

_We? _Sara felt her smile grow. We sounded like it meant her and Grissom. She felt sure that he wouldn't be leaving Catherine and Warrick without Greg to cover two shifts, so it had to mean just her and Grissom.

"Sara?"

Sara grinned and bit her lip. "Uh, yeah, I'll need to stop by the lab. My kit is still in my car." Thankfully her kit was freshly stocked so she wouldn't actually have to enter the lab. She wasn't sure she could smother her smile if she did.

"Alright, I'll swing by your place first. We can leave straight from the lab."

"Great."

It was silent. For a moment she wondered if she should try to fill in the silence. She opted not and a second later Grissom's voice came a cross again. "Good. I'll be there shortly."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Grissom pulled the Denali up right next to Sara's car. He'd already taken her overnight bag when he'd switched over vehicles while she'd wandered over to her car, keys in hand. Transferring her kit over to the Denali, Sara peeked in her trunk and decided to bring along some other supplies from her well-stocked vehicle. She noticed that Grissom had the same thought, as there were two large bags in addition to her kit and overnight bag. Slipping into the passenger seat, she reached for her seatbelt and felt Grissom's eyes on her. He was looking at her with a tender gaze she'd only ever seen when they were alone. "We've got a couple of hours on the road. You should try to get some sleep," he said, softly.

She didn't think she could, but nodded anyways, knowing she might regret not getting a couple of hours later. She'd had a pretty restful night as she and Greg had been able to mostly sit back and wait for results to confirm that the man they had in custody was the con artist they'd been searching for, so she wasn't running on fumes yet. After closing out that case and filing her paperwork, she hadn't had much else to occupy her time with. However, she didn't know what was in store for them later, so taking advantage of the opportunity to sleep was probably wise. She was about to suggest that Grissom wake her half way and take a nap himself, but felt it might start something she didn't want to start at that time, not when there was something lovely and fragile tentatively peeking out at them from the future.

Closing her eyes, she listened as Grissom put the stereo on low, something soft and soothing. A soft smile spread over her face as she felt the ghost of his touch brushing over her wrist, once, twice, and then disappearing. Sleep found her much quicker than she'd expected.

She woke an hour and a half later feeling stiff and sore from falling asleep in a car. She was still tired and could probably fall back asleep if only she could get comfortable. Instead, she blinked and sat up, looking at the scenery outside. "Where are we?"

Beside her, Grissom frowned. "We just went through Alamo. We're still about 45 minutes away. I would have thought you would have slept longer."

Sara grinned. "Well I wanted to, but my neck and back had other ideas." She rubbed at her sore neck for emphasis.

Grissom's eyes shot to hers. His frown had disappeared and his eyes were soft. "Do you need to stop and stretch? We could pull over in Ash Springs and you could work some of those kinks out."

Sara shook her head. "I'm fine." She looked over at him, paused and took a deep breath. "What about you? Do you need to stop? We could trade places and you could try to get some rest yourself."

Grissom shook his head. "I'm okay."

"You sure? You had that meeting with Ecklie and then had to get caught up in all that paperwork last night."

"Sara, I have a confession."

Sara stared at him and bit her lip. Grissom was looking straight ahead. "What is it?" she asked slowly.

He glanced from the road to her and lowered his voice. "I took a nap last night while I was supposed to be doing paperwork."

Sara grinned. "You did?"

"Yeah, I couldn't help it. I was staring at those sheets, the same ones over and over again, and I felt myself drift off."

"So you didn't get the paperwork done that Ecklie wanted finished before the old shift comes back into effect."

"Sara, I barely made a dent."

Sara laughed. "No wonder you offered to take Greg and me to breakfast. You got to nap instead of push paper, while Greg and I had to sit around and wait for results for our case."

Grissom shook his head. Sara felt that same ghost of a touch on her as she'd felt just before drifting off and she looked down at her wrist. Grissom's thumb was brushing softly over the top of her wrist while his fingers rested lightly on the side. "That's not why I took you to breakfast."

Sara glanced quickly at him. He shrugged softly letting his thumb continue to brush over her wrist and she felt a small smile grace her face. She closed her eyes and let herself enjoy his light caress. "Will it delay the shift changes if you don't get the paperwork done?" she asked, eyes still closed.

"No," Grissom spoke softly. "Ecklie will just continue to hound me about it later."

"Good," she whispered, opening her eyes again. She turned her palm up and offered him a chance to accept her invitation. His thumb brushed over the underside of her wrist before his hand slid into hers. He squeezed gently before moving his hand back to the steering wheel.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The 93 veered to the right, the road changing direction from north to east. As soon as Grissom and Sara made the turn, clouds appeared in the distance ahead. Sara craned her head forward to study the darkening sky. She took a deep breath. "Looks like rain up ahead."

Grissom nodded.

"Is our crime scene inside?" she asked hopefully, thinking about how the rain might wash away vital evidence if the scene were outside.

Beside her, Grissom shook his head. "It's at some construction site, so I'm not really sure, but…"

Sara nodded. Chances were as good as not that the crime scene was outside.

As they neared Caliente, the rain seemed to be holding off and Sara found herself breathing sigh of relief. "Maybe it will hold."

They turned into the town and found puddles on the road. "Or it already passed," Grissom said, sighing. Sara nodded and bit her lip. She continued to keep vigil outside her window as Grissom pulled into a small motel. The sign said _Shady Motel _and parked in the lot was the Lincoln County Sheriff's vehicle. The Sheriff was leaning against it.

Grissom pulled to a stop and both he and Sara stepped out. They strolled over to Sheriff and watched as he stood up and extended his hand, first to Grissom, then to Sara. "Sheriff Brackett, good to meet you."

"Gil Grissom," Grissom spoke as he shook the Sheriff's hand. Sara followed suit. "Sara Sidle."

The Sheriff smiled. "Never had much call for this kind of thing up here, but I went ahead and booked you a couple of rooms in this hotel. You can drop your stuff and then follow me to the scene if you'd like."

Grissom shook his head. "We'd like to head straight to the scene."

The Sheriff nodded. "Fine by me. I'll just call the county coroner and get her to head out. She's had the heads up and was just waiting for the call before heading out from the hospital in Pioche. This will be something new for her. In her eight years here, her only call-outs have been accidents or naturals."

Grissom nodded in understanding. Sara cocked her head. "Looks like you guys got some rain."

The Sheriff scratched at his chin. "Yeah, uh, it rained most of the morning. Quit around noon."

"We were told that the body is at some sort of construction site." Grissom stated.

"Well something like that. It's at a truck-load silo on the way to Panaca."

"Any chance the rain didn't compromise the evidence?"

The Sheriff let out a small laugh. "Oh, you don't have to worry, at least, not about that."

Sara and Grissom glanced at each other, wearing matching frowns. Sara wasn't sure if that meant the body was found indoors, but the look the Sheriff was sporting made her somewhat doubtful.

"The body is sealed off from the rain. Why don't you follow me? The roads out to the silo aren't well marked. It's easy to get lost."

Sara watched as Grissom nodded and they headed back to the Denali. As they climbed in, Sara looked at Grissom. "What do you think the Sheriff meant by all that? How is the body sealed off?"

Grissom shrugged. "I guess we'll find out once we get there." His eyes lit up with excitement and Sara had to wonder when was the last time she'd seen that. It had been quite a long while. She felt her smile grow as she thought about what kind of mystery they would be up against.

Clipping on her seatbelt, Sara grinned over at Grissom. "Well then, what are we waiting for?"

They were waiting for Sheriff Brackett. Sara watched as the Sheriff pocketed his phone and slid inside his car. Grissom pulled out behind the Sheriff as Sara gazed out the window, watching for landmarks as they passed. Sure they had the GPS, but Sara wondered how effective it would be on the back roads. To her surprise, when the Sheriff turned off the 93, he led them onto a paved road. Or at least it was partially paved. Some of the pavement was breaking up. There were potholes, cracks and ridges littering the way. Tar was poured along some cracks, forming bumps in the road that the Denali would sail over before hitting a pothole on the other side. It was long. It was windy. It was almost deserted, but for some construction plants and mining companies. At the end of the paved road, they turned off onto dirt. Driving another couple hundred yards, they pulled up to the truck-load silo.

The silo, suspended above a scale, climbed high into the air. Around the loading hose at the bottom of the silo there was a platform from which truckers could lower the loading hose into the top hatches of the truck. From the platform, there were sets of ladders climbing all the way to the top of the silo, ringing the side with small protective cages resembling something like a fire escape on an apartment building, only with the ladders clinging directly to the side of the silo. On one side, sitting on a cement platform on the ground was a smaller silo and a machine labeled _cyclonaire_. Beside that an auxilery line from the railroad track ran, and there were four railcars sitting on the track. On the other side of the scale, there was large holding tank of some sort, with hoses extending out. Two Semi-trucks and their trailers were parked along the tank. Another set of trailers was parked at the end of the cement pullout that led into the site. A very small silo sat beside the large tank, and beside that, a line of vehicles, parked in a row. A Nevada State Highway patrol car was next to the small silo. There were three other vehicles there, two personal and one company. Parking the Denali at the end of the line, Grissom stepped out. Sara watched as he handed the highway patrol officer a roll of crime scene tape and told the young man to rope off the area.

Sara climbed out of her the vehicle and immediately noticed the noise. It was a loud site. She moved to stand beside Grissom. A man walked up to them and extended his hand. "Joe Dryden," he said, speaking loudly over the sound of machines running. "I'm the manager of this site."

"Gil Grissom, CSI, Las Vegas. This is my colleague, Sara Sidle."

Sara gave a short nod.

"How come the machines are running?" Grissom asked, yelling over the noise.

"That's the compressor. You'll need the air," the manager yelled in return.

"What kind of site is it?"

"It's a dry bulk silo. We unload and deliver bulk cement and flyash."

"So, where's the body?" Sara asked.

The manager led them inside the site's office and it was immediately much quieter. The office was a trailer, with little more inside then a desk, a couple of chairs and a fax machine inside. The rest of the trailer was partitioned off by a solid wall. Sara figured that the office only took up about half of the space of the trailer, if that.

Joe Dryden opened up a small locker, and took out a hard hat, safety glasses, safety vest and gloves. Sara glanced down and noticed he was also wearing steel-toed boots. "Before we head out, you need to don the minimum required personal protective equipment for this site. We have extra safety goggles and hard hats if you need."

Sara watched as Grissom shook his head. "We brought our required PPE."

Sara frowned and studied Grissom. "I'll be right back," he said.

He returned a minute later and produced one of the large bags she'd spotted while loading her kit in the truck. Opening it, he handed Sara a pair of coveralls, a hard hat with attached earmuffs, safety goggles, and in the bottom of the bag, her own steel-toed boots.

Dressing quickly, Sara and Grissom followed Joe Dryden back outside. He led them around the trailer, onto the cement platform by the scale. Sara looked around and frowned. "I don't get it. Where's the body?"

The manager walked over to the rail line, flipped a switch on a small box by the rail and a bag below the nearest railcar dropped down in between the rails. Cement powder fell off the gasket on the bag and out of the gate on the car. Sticking out through the gate at the bottom of the railcar was an arm.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"Grissom," Sara hissed, her eyes shooting over to her supervisor and her brow pinched in a frown. "That's not the kind of railcar people usually hop."

Beside her, Grissom shook his head. Sara glanced at the railcar, which looked like a large holding tank. It wasn't cylindrical, but the steel sides of the car were rounded out. Underneath, two gates tapered off from the cavity of the railcar. The bag that had dropped down between the rail lines had been attached to the forward gate. A vibrator, connecting to a hose had been slipped into a support on the rail car. There were no doors along the side, and Sara could not figure out how anyone would have gotten the body inside the car. One thing she was almost sure of was that it didn't get stuffed in from the bottom. There wasn't much clearance there and the perpetrator would have needed a machine to open the gate. She supposed he could have pried it open slowly with a bar, but stuffing it up and in afterwards would be too difficult, and the railcar would have had to be empty to do it, otherwise the powdered cement inside the car would spill out everywhere. The body had to have gotten inside some other way.

Sara figured there were hatches up top, but that would mean that if it were a homicide, somebody would have had to get the body to the top of the rail car to drop the body inside. At the plant there were stairs leading up to the suspended platform around the bottom of the silo. The platform branched to almost above the rail line, with a ladder on some kind of hydraulics that looked like it dropped out and down onto the railcar. A large safety cage surrounded the ladder and sat above the railcar. At a site like this, the body could be dragged up the steps and dropped in, but it seemed like far too much effort to go to for a body dump. If the perpetrator was hoping the railroad would carry the body far away from the crime scene, it might provide the incentive. However, while this site had the accessible platform, how many places along the line would provide the same opportunity? A person climbing up top would have to use one of the steep ladders at the front and back of the railcar. Lugging a body up those ladders would be very difficult.

Sara looked at Grissom and frowned. The easiest explanation was usually the right one. She faced him, leaning in and said, very low, almost beneath her breath, "Maybe this was an accident. Somebody climbed up top and fell in."

Grissom frowned. He turned to Joe Dryden. "Mr. Dryden, who found the body?"

A young man in coveralls stepped forward. "I found it."

"What's your name?"

"My name?" The young man fidgeted nervously. "Kurt Cochrane."

"Do you want to tell us how you found the body?"

"Uh, sure. I, uh, came in early to unload railcars. That's what I do; unload cars of cement into the silo. I flipped open the hatch to let some air into the car so that it wouldn't, like, implode, then came down here."

"The hatch up top was closed?"

"Uh, yeah."

"You're sure."

"Yeah."

"Was it closed properly?"

"Yeah, it was sealed shut with the cement right around the rim. I needed a bar to pry it up."

Sara lifted a brow and glanced at Grissom. He glanced over to her quickly before his eyes left hers and returned to the young laborer. "Go on."

"Well, the car seemed like it was taking a long time to unload and I was vibrating the hell out of it. I figured maybe I had some lumps, so I went up top to take a peek in. It was too dusty and I couldn't see."

"What about earlier, when you opened the hatches, did you look in then?"

Kurt Cochrane shook his head slowly. "No, uh, normally I do, but it was raining this morning, like really hard. I didn't want to take a chance on the product getting wet, so I just pried open the hatches and rested the lids on the hatch latch."

"So, when you thought there were lumps, you peeked in quickly and only saw dust," Grissom started, re-queuing the young man.

"Yeah, uh, and I couldn't take a good look because of the rain."

"So what did you do?" Sara asked.

"I came back down and tried to close the gate. I figured I could close it and check for lumps on the screen of the gasket, but the gate wouldn't close all the way. I figured a lump probably got stuck in the gate so I opened it back up and let it vibrate for a while longer, until I thought it was just about empty. I figured I could check for lumps then without spilling too badly, so I tried to close the gate again. It still wouldn't close all the way, but I'd got it closed quite a bit and figured the car was almost empty, so I dropped the bootjack to take a look. That's when I saw the arm, just sticking out the bottom, just like that. I'm telling you, it was like, really, really freaky."

"I can imagine."

Grissom frowned. "So why did you lift the bootjack back up?"

Kurt Cochrane shifted on his feet. "Well, it was raining and I, you know, have seen a few of those forensics shows and know that the rain could wash away evidence, even if it's partially protected by the cover of a railcar…" He shifted some more and then lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "Besides, that's the way I found it."

Grissom pulled Sara aside. "If Kurt Cochrane is telling the truth, there is no way this was an accident. Somebody else would have had to seal the hatch."

Sara nodded. "Unless somebody noticed it open and sealed it by accident."

"Without looking in? I would think they would have to check for contamination on an unsealed hatch. If you were worried about contaminating a product and you saw a hatch open, wouldn't you peek in to check, even if it was raining?"

"Yeah, I suppose. Still…"

"We have to eliminate the possibility, yeah." Grissom gave her a soft smile. "We could always ask the railway."

Sara nodded. She watched as Grissom glanced over at the arm dangling out of the bottom gate. "We need to get a better look at the body."

"Well if we open up the gate on the railcar, we run the risk of the body falling out before we can photograph it."

Grissom nodded. "It's not raining anymore. We can probably open the hatches up top and get a better look inside."

Sara bit her bottom lip and nodded in reply. "Let's head up top."

They climbed the narrow steps, the stairs up to the metal grated platform above the railcar spiraling in squares. Sara felt Grissom's gloved hand land on her hip every so often, guiding her before him. They reached the ladder to the railcar and found it was not on hydraulics, but merely had a suspension system that allowed the ladder and safety cage surrounding it to be either pulled up away from the railcar or pushed down onto it. Sara stepped onto the ladder in front of Grissom and climbed onto the railcar. The safety gate and ladder moved along the platform and they pushed it so that they were above one of the railcar's hatches. Carefully opening the latch on the handle so as to not smudge any possible prints on the latch, they lifted the hatch and dropped it, allowing the hatch to fall open. They both peered inside. "It's hard to see anything," Sara whispered.

She looked up at Grissom and watched him nod. He pulled out a Maglite and shined it into the railcar. "Lot's of cement dust."

Sara stuck her head in to try to get a better peek, but felt Grissom tug her shoulder back. She looked up at him.

"Cement is made up of crystalline silica. It's really unhealthy to breathe in. You should be wearing a respirator."

"So should you," she returned.

Grissom's light shone down on the gate. A stream of light peered through it. Through the dust, surrounded by cement powder, the outline of the body could be seen.

Sara leaned back. "Not much you can see from up here."

Grissom shook his head, turning off his Maglite. His eyes darted about the hatch. Frowning, he reached into the pocket of his coveralls and pulled out a swab. "There's red staining along the inside of this hatch."

"Blood?"

Grissom swabbed the hatch and sealed up his swab. "I'll check once we get down from here." He paused and looked down at the ground below them.

"What are you thinking?" Sara asked.

"Well normally we would impound this railcar, but we have to process the bootjack and the bag underneath, not to mention the rest of the site. There's also going to be cement inside and impounding the car…"

"You want to process the railcar on site?"

Grissom nodded. "We can process most of it and impound it after to finish up if we need to. Why don't you process up here? I'll start at the bottom."

Sara nodded. She stood up and followed Grissom up the ladder and down the steps. Grabbing her kit and her camera, she made sure she had her respirator and her flash and headed back up the stairs.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Making sure she kept the safety cage around her, Sara leaned into the hatch and tried to take the best photos possible. She'd taken multiples of inside the car and of the hatch. She'd already printed the hatch and the handle and had pulled several prints. The beauty of working with cement powder was that it somehow retained the print better. It was like seeing a print in blood. She already knew where the prints were and just had to lift. The downside was that the print powder didn't like holding to the cement powder, so it couldn't be used. She'd known that trying to use the cement powder as print powder could end up in the possibility of smearing all her prints, so after taking pictures of the prints to scan and compare, she merely sprayed a little solution to dampen the print, and then cemented it right into her tape lifts. She took her own swabs of along the inside of the hatch to go with Grissom's and sealed them up, testing one to find that indeed, blood was present.

Hauling everything back down the steps, she spotted Grissom sifting through the cement powder that had fallen through the gate when the bag below had been lowered. Sara stopped in front of Grissom and lowered the respirator from her face. "I need to get inside that railcar to get a better idea about what we're looking at."

"Oh, no," Joe Dryden interrupted. "You have to been authorized to go inside there."

Sara watched as Grissom looked up and lifted a brow.

Joe Dryden shook his head. "I can't even go in there. It's a Nevada work-safe issue."

Sara watched Grissom carefully. He was always concerned for her safety, frustratingly so, but on the other hand, he knew as well as she did that they needed to get inside and it just wasn't feasible for him to be the one to do it. For a moment she wondered if Grissom regretted bringing her along. He would have easily allowed this task to be done by anybody else, except for maybe Nick, given what Nick had just gone through, but he seemed to be weighing it with her. She knew he didn't like the thought of seeing her in a situation where she could become trapped. She held his eyes and smiled when he sighed softly. "I'll get her authorization. We'll put her in a safety harness and I'll be up there with her."

Joe Dryden shrugged. Sara watched as Grissom stood up, stretching out his back, and pulled out his cell phone. He sighed again. "No reception."

"Yeah, it's real spotty out here. Cuts in and out all the time," Kurt Cochrane stated.

Grissom looked to Joe Dryden. "I'll use the phone in the office."

Grissom disappeared with Joe Dryden and Sara bent down, taking a look at the evidence Grissom had pulled while sifting through the cement. There were fragments of glass, likely from some sort of a bottle. Clumps of cement were bagged for trace. A chunk of hair in a small ball was also bagged, along with some cigarette butts and what looked to be the butt of a joint.

Grissom returned a few minutes later. "Ecklie is pulling some strings to get you inside. Sheriff Brackett is going with Joe Dryden to rig you up a safety harness."

Sara nodded.

"You keep that respirator on while you're down there."

She nodded again. "I will."

His hand lifted and then dropped to his side. His hand lifted again and ran through his hair. He wanted to say something, but couldn't find the words. Sara took pity on him. She lifted up one of his evidence bags. "Looks like you took quite a hall out of the cement that spilled."

Grissom sighed and nodded. "Yeah, a few bottle fragments. It looks like a mickey. Vodka I think." He lifted up one bag from the bottom of the pile and held it up. "Got the neck."

"Hopefully we can get DNA off of it."

Grissom nodded. He gazed pensively at the railcar. "We're going to have to empty that bag and sift through it as well."

Sara looked up at the towering silo over the scale. "The silo too, if anything got through the grate and was sucked up into the silo."

"That's going to be a lot of work."

"Maybe we should add another night to the hotel reservation."

Grissom nodded and met her eyes, holding them. Sara flushed, glancing away.

"Miss Sidle, we've got you a harness and you've got authorization to go into that car."

Sara looked over at Sheriff Brackett and smiled. "Thank you."

Grabbing her camera, she led Grissom and the Sheriff up the stairs, to the top of the railcar. Grissom helped her into the harness and gently fastened it up for her. "Ready?" he asked, softly.

Sara nodded.

"The Sheriff and I will have the ropes. Give them a tug when you need to come up."

"Okay."

Putting her respirator in place, she lowered herself into the hatch, grabbing onto the ladder that ran down the inside of the railcar. After only a few rungs, the ladder ended, and there was a good slant down the rest of the railcar. A bar ran through the middle and Sara found she could use that for leverage, or to stand on and lower herself the remainder of the way. Letting go of the taut rope, she straddled the bar and began photographing the body.

Sara lowered her camera to her neck and gave a short tug on the rope. With the Sheriff's and Grissom's help, she made it back to the ladder and climbed up the ladder to the opening of the hatch. "The coroner is here," Grissom said, nodding towards the gravel road.

Sara lowered her respirator, and glanced back over her shoulder. She could see the coroner's van pulling up onto the scale. Sara slipped the camera off her neck and handed it to Grissom. "I'm not finished yet."

Grissom nodded. "What does it look like?"

"From the shape of the body, I'd say we're dealing with a male. Hard to get a good look. There's more glass down there and some red staining along that bar running across. Could be more blood. I'll need some baggies, tweezers and a few swabs."

Grissom handed her those items. Sara looked over at the Sheriff. "Sheriff, there are some clumps of cement in here that might have footprints embedded on them. I can't lift them out and if we wait for the body to be removed and try to vibrate them out, we run the risk of the clumps breaking up on us."

"What do you need?"

"A large, heavy duty bucket and some rope. Something I can put the clumps into that you and Grissom can pull up."

The Sheriff nodded and stood. She watched as he walked up the ladder to the platform. She lifted her respirator.

"Sara, you're not going back down there until the Sheriff gets back."

She lowered her respirator again. "You've got me."

"Sara."

Sara shook her head. "Look Griss, it's going to be a few minutes before I'm ready to come back up again anyways. I'll be fine."

Grissom shook his head. "No."

"The sooner I get back down there, the sooner it's done and I'm out."

"We wait."

"The coroner…"

"We wait," he said again, his voice firmer.

Sara sighed. She crossed her arms and rested them on the rim of the hatch. Grissom held onto them and she watched as his thumbs brushed over the sleeves of her coveralls.

A couple minutes later the Sheriff returned, calling out ahead of him. "I've got the bucket and the rope."

Grissom released her arms and stood up. Sara grinned up at the Sheriff who was tying the rope to the handle of the bucket. Once the rope was knotted around the handle, Sara took the bucket from him. Grissom took it from her. "We'll lower it down to you."

Sara smirked. "Fine." She lowered her respirator to her mouth and climbed back down into the nearly hollow railcar. She braced herself on the center bar and signaled for Grissom to lower the bucket.

After easing herself down to the floor of the railcar, Sara gently placed the cement clumps into the bucket and tugged on the rope attached to the bucket so that Grissom and the Sheriff would know to pull it up. She finished processing what she could and gave a tug on her own ropes.

On the cement platform down by the scale, Grissom helped her out of the harness. His hands grazed over her arms. "How are you doing?"

She grinned at him. "I'm good."

"What was it like in there?"

Sara lifted off her hard hat and swiped at the sweat gathered on her brow. "Hot, well, muggy, hollow…dirty."

Grissom smiled at her. "I can tell."

"Yeah? How?"

"Sara Sidle, you've gone grey."

Sara pulled off her gloves and shook her hand through her hair. She groaned. "Guess who's really in need of a shower tonight."

She thought she saw something flash in Grissom's eyes, but before she could get a good look, it was gone. He turned from her to the coroner, a blonde middle-aged woman, who'd approached, introducing herself as Sheila Campbell. "Gil Grissom, Las Vegas Crime lab. We're ready to remove the body any time you are."

The coroner nodded. Sara noticed there was a bit of a frown on the older woman's face. Sara grinned. "Thinking about how to get that body out?"

Sheila Campbell nodded again. "Yeah, this is about the most interesting dead body I've ever seen."

Sara's grin grew. "Yeah? Doesn't even make my top ten."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Sara watched as Kurt Cochrane attached the gate opener and turned it on, slowly rolling out the steel gate beneath the railcar. A cloud of grey dust flew out as cement fell from the open gate. The body did not move.

Sara took the opportunity to get more shots of the body before Shelia Campbell could remove it. Kneeling beside her, Grissom exchanged a few words about strategy with the coroner from Pioche. Then, reaching in, the three of them maneuvered the body out of the car, pulling out more cement as they did so. The body of a young man flopped down on the boot hatch and Sara lifted her camera again, immediately snapping photos.

Sheila Campbell's gloved hand flitted through the victim's hair. "Abrasion on the back of the skull."

Grissom nodded, fingering the abrasion with his gloved hands. It was small, Sara noted, but could have bled out slowly.

The coroner flipped the body over. "Arm appears to be a bit mangled, broken in several places, but there is no bruising to go along with it."

"Post-mortem," Sara muttered to herself, "likely from opening and closing the gate on the railcar." She noticed Grissom nod in agreement.

Sheila Campbell glanced between them. "The body is beginning to decompose. Passed rigor a while ago, but I couldn't give you the time. I won't be able to get you a TOD here."

Sara watched as Grissom nodded again. Sealed in a container, away from the elements with no bugs able to get at the body either, Grissom wouldn't be able to do his thing to get TOD either. The rate of decomposition in the container would correlate to the temperature outside. A big steel container could produce a lot of heat inside, but Sara was unsure whether the powder would increase the heat, or cool the temperature inside the container. She glanced at Grissom with a smirk. "Want to throw a cadaver into a steel container full of cement and see how long it takes to decompose?"

Four faces turned to Sara with a shocked look. Grissom only smirked. "Trade humor," Sara told the group of surprised onlookers, though if all the other areas of the investigation didn't pan out, they might be doing something similar to try to recreate the conditions.

Sheriff Brackett shook his head. "First for me," he muttered almost under her breath.

Sheila Campbell brushed the matted hair away from the victim's face. Sara and Grissom crouched down to take a good look. "Anybody recognize him?" Grissom asked.

Joe Dryden and Kurt Cochrane both shook their heads. The Sheriff kneeled down beside the body. "I don't either, and there aren't any recent missing persons in the county."

"Does he have ID on him?"

The coroner's fingers slipped into the pockets of the victim's jeans. "Sorry, empty."

Grissom stood up and looked at Joe Dryden. "How long have these railcars been here?"

"Train spotted them yesterday," Kurt Cochrane put in.

Sara and Grissom shared a look, both lifting a brow. If the railcar had only arrived the day before, whatever happened inside did not happen on that site. The body indicated that. While the railcar was the crime scene, the site was not. "And before that?" Grissom asked.

Joe Dryden let out a breath. "I'll get the railroad to get you all that information."

"Where does your cement come from?" Sara asked.

"Mojave."

"California."

Joe Dryden nodded. "Gets shipped from the cement plant out there."

Grissom nodded. "We're looking for a missing person west of here," he said to Sara. She nodded in return. Grissom stood up. "Sheriff, we'll need the body transferred to our Medical Examiner in Las Vegas. We'll also need a uniform to transfer evidence to our Lab so that they can begin processing."

The Sheriff nodded. "I'll have somebody go through missing persons reports from all the towns on the line between here and Mojave as well."

"Thank you." Grissom looked down at Sara. "I'll phone Catherine and see who's available to process for us and get them to sign off on chain of custody from the officer transporting the evidence, and I'll get Brass to coordinate with the Sheriff and work on missing persons as well."

Crouching back down, Grissom helped the coroner place the body into a body bag. With all the steps and obstacles in the way, it was too hard to roll the gurney, so Grissom ended up helping the coroner to carry the body stretcher style. He closed the doors to the back of the van and then stepped back. Sara watched as the coroner's van and Sheriff's vehicle kicked up dust on their way to Pioche.

She glanced over to Joe Dryden, who was pacing around while speaking on the phone. He clipped it shut and turned to the two CSIs. "Railroad is on their way over."

Sara nodded. She looked at Grissom. "Back to sifting through cement?"

He gave a soft nod. Sara looked at the bag below the railcar, and then up at the large silo. She turned to Joe Dryden. "Can you give us a rundown on how this all works?"

"Yeah, sure." He paused. "Basically it's like a large vacuum. When we need powder in the silo, we spot a railcar. We use an electric winch to spot. Other sites have car movers, but this place is pretty small. It basically only exists because of the dams in this area." He shrugged. "Maintenance and expansion."

"You spot the car so that the gate is over the bag?"

"Yeah," he scratched his chin. "Then a bootjack lifts the bag up and seals to the gate using a gasket. The bootjack operates on air. There's a large compressor in the back of the trailer."

Sara nodded. She was wondering what the purpose of partitioning the trailer had been. The heavy equipment was stored there. "So you open up the air and it lifts the boot jack."

"Yes. Then we open up the gate. It's also operated by air. Gravity does its trick and cement falls into the bag where it gets sucked into the cyclone."

"And you open up the top hatches so that air can replace the cement that gets drawn out of the railcar."

Joe Dryden nodded. "Right, or else the pressure might try to suck in the sides of the railcar."

Grissom took that moment to step into the conversation. "How does the powder get from the cyclone down here all the way up to the top of the silo?"

Joe Dryden pointed to an unfamiliar looking machine. "Those are your blowers. Their job is to blow the cement out of the cyclone and up into the silo."

"That sounds like it requires a lot of pressure," Sara put in.

"It does, and a lot of power. Each blower has its own breaker."

Grissom nodded. "Then, the cement gets stored in the silo."

"Right, until one of the redi-mixes need a load. When that happens, a truck parks on the scale. The driver lines up his trailer hatches to the hose extending out of the silo, goes up on the platform, lowers the loading hose and loads whatever weight he is required to take out."

"What's that large tank with the hoses for?" Sara asked, nodding to the large, cylindrical tank on the other side of the scale.

"Flyash. It gets mixed with the cement at the redi-mixes when making concrete. It's the other product that moves through this site." He pointed to the small silo beside it. "That's the flyash dust collector, and this one over here is our other dust collector."

"Cement?"

"Whatever we're unloading. It runs to both the silo and the flyash pig."

"This railcar is cement, though?"

"Yeah."

"Did anything get taken out today?"

Joe Dryden frowned. "I'm not really sure. I'd have to check with dispatch."

Grissom frowned. "You're the site manager."

"Yes, but my office is in Pioche where we operate most of our business. This facility is under my management, but pretty much runs itself. There are a few truckers from Panaca and Caliente who run most of the cement loads, unless we need them hauling something else out of Pioche, and Kurt here, who unloads for us when we need it. It isn't a big enough operation to require a manager on site. I almost never make it out here, myself. Everything runs through our office in Pioche, including dispatch."

Kurt Cochrane stepped forward. "I can answer that question. Jeff took a load out today."

Grissom looked over at Kurt Cochrane. "Did he take a load out before or after you began unloading this car?"

"After."

"How full was the silo before you began unloading?"

"About a hundred tons. Close to half."

"Griss," Sara said, noticing a truck drive up with rollers under the front bumper. "I think the railroad is here."

Grissom nodded. He turned back to Joe Dryden. "We'll need to know where your driver took that load. While it isn't likely, there could be evidence in the trailer."

Joe Dryden nodded. "I can get you that information as soon as I get back to town."

"If it hasn't been unloaded, get someone to stop the truck and bring it to the Sheriff's office in Pioche."

There was another short nod. "I'll fax over all the information we have to the fax machine here for you."

"Thank you."

Grissom turned to the man stepping out of the company railway truck. Sara approached with him. "You're with the railway?"

"Yes, ma'am. Roger Warren."

"You spotted these railcars on site here?"

"Yes, ma'am, yesterday."

"And where was it before?"

"It sat on the line for a couple days here."

"And before that?"

"Came from the west. That's all I can tell you. Train dropped it off on its route. This is an auxiliary line built for the construction companies here, and all the railway employees in this area work on the line here. The town used to be a real railway hub with the main line going right through town, but there's not much reason to stop anymore, so all our work is on the auxiliary line. I can get you that information though."

"Get it," Grissom said cutting in. "We need to know every place this train stopped between here and Mojave."

"I'll pull it up on the computer back at the office and fax it here?" he stated, inflecting his voice upwards on the last word to form a question.

"That will be fine."

"One more thing," Sara said, before Roger Warren could leave. "Do you ever climb on top of the railcars to check the hatches?"

Roger Warren frowned. "Uh, no ma'am. We just spot the cars."

"But if you spot an open hatch, what do you do?"

"Close it, I guess."

"Do you check inside?"

"Never had one open before, but procedure is to check, always."

"You've never spotted one open?" Sara asked, confirming.

Roger Warred shook his head. "Nope. We railroaders have seen some crazy stuff on the tracks. Opened up a freight car once and found a Hispanic family in rags once, asking if they were in Phoenix. They had a tent set up and had been living off canned beans. Had a latrine set up on the other side of the car that was no picnic to clean up. Another time we opened up the side and found a couple of pit bulls, nothing else. Closed that car off until we could get animal control out, but these kinds of railcars, top hatches only and carrying this kind of product…sane people don't tend ride inside these cars, ma'am. Craziest thing I've ever heard of."

"Thank you, Mr. Warren."

"Sure, ma'am. Sir, I'll get you all the information on this railcar and all of its stops, including length of each stop, shortly."

Grissom nodded. "Thank you."

Sara turned to Kurt Cochrane. The young man was shifting on his feet, probably wanting to get home, or get out of there after the day he'd had. While everything there was still running, Sara felt confident that they could let him go. "We're almost done with you as well. We just need you to finish going through how this works and we'll need your fingerprints."

He frowned. "My fingerprints?"

"To eliminate from the prints we pulled from the railcar."

"I wear gloves."

Sara shrugged. "We're still going to need your prints. It's procedure."

"Oh, okay." He sounded unsure, but extended a hand to Sara. Grissom moved to her kit and retrieved a print card and ink for her. Sara carefully took Kurt Cochrane's prints and let go of his hand. "Thank you."

Kurt Cochrane nodded. "What else do you need?"

Sara frowned, thinking about how much easier it would be to vibrate the rest of the cement out of the railcar and sift it there, rather than lower herself back into the car and have to try to sift through the cement there. "Can we get the cement out of the car without it being sucked up into the silo?"

Kurt Cochrane laughed. "Sure. You just have to close the valve on hose from the cyclone to the railcar, or turn off the cyclone completely, and just vibrate the stuff down."

"How do we do that?"

Kurt Cochrane walked over to the cyclone and pushed down on a red STOP button. Immediately half the noise from the site quit, leaving only the compressor from the back of the trailer running. "There you go. If you need to start it back up again, you just hit the on button, and flick that switch to begin the unload cycle."

Sara nodded. It had seemed too obvious, but she hadn't wanted to just hit buttons without being sure.

"One more thing," Grissom said. "When we're done with the compressor, how do we shut everything down for you?"

Kurt Cochrane led them to the back and showed them all of the switches and breakers, outlining how to shut everything off, and in what order to do it in.

"Thanks for your help," Sara said, as they made their way back over to the side of the trailer. "We'll make sure everything gets shut down when we're done."

"Yeah," he shifted on his feet and glanced down at his ink stained fingers. "No problem."

"We may have more questions for you later."

"Sure, uh, my number is posted inside the office there."

Sara nodded. The young man turned away and got into his vehicle, kicking up dust as he left. She glanced around. It was just her, Grissom and the highway patrolman left.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

They began by closing the gate on the railcar and sifting through the cement that had spilled out onto the gasket and tracks beneath the railcar. Most of it was cement powder, Sara having done a fairly thorough job inside the railcar, despite the obstacles she'd faced in that area. Even so, every so often, they picked out a piece of glass, or material from the cement.

Done with the cement they'd spilled, they removed the gasket from the bootjack and began digging into the bag, pulling out more cement powder to sift through. The top of the bag was mostly fine cement, but a few errant items had fallen to the bottom. One was a tooth, perhaps knocked out of the body when it got vibrated around inside the railcar.

The bag empty, Sara began reaching in, pulling out cement from the large hose that ran underground from the bottom of the bag below the rails, coming out of the ground near the bootjack valve and rising up to the top of the cyclone. Reaching as far as she could with her trowel, Sara looked at Grissom. "You know, we're still going to have to figure out the best way to empty the silo and sift through all of the cement in there."

Grissom's eyes moved from her to the silo and then back. She watched his eyes wander over her frame as she pushed her chest out in an effort to stretch her arm down as far as possible. "What do you suggest?"

Lifting her arm out, she dumped the half full trowel into the pile Grissom was methodically sifting through. "I don't know. Dump it all out on the scale and sift through it there?"

"Cement will fly everywhere. Besides, if it begins to rain again…"

Sara nodded. If it began to rain again, the cement would all be exposed, and they'd be trying to sift through a pile of goo and losing possible evidence, not to mention they'd be paving over the scale, creating a mess near impossible to clean up and causing damage to the scale. She stretched down again. "Well we can't load it into a truck. It would be impossible to sift inside, and it gets pumped out into another silo, so we'd just run into the same problem. If we blew it out of the hoses on the truck, we'd still send cement flying everywhere."

Grissom let out a soft, "Hmm," in agreement. She glanced at him and watched as his hands delicately sifted through the relatively small pile of cement he had before him. She reached around with her trowel. "I think that's all we're going to get out of here." When she pulled her trowel out, it only had a smattering of cement on it.

Dumping the cement and placing the trowel down on the ground next to the rails, Sara stood up and rotated her shoulder. Grissom looked up at her. He stood beside her and gave her arm a squeeze. "We can vibrate some more down, but first, let me get rid of this powder. It will give you a chance to rest your arm."

Sara smiled her thanks. She watched Grissom wander away and return with a couple of 4 gallon buckets. "We'll put the powder in here for now and store it somewhere where it won't get wet." He picked Sara's trowel up off the ground and began scooping cement into the buckets, filling one about three-quarters of the way full. Sara was still working the kinks out of her shoulder. Grissom stood across from her and sighed. "You ready?"

She nodded. She knew he'd offer to be the one digging down into the bag if he could, but with the bottom of the gate sticking down from the railcar, and the tight squeeze in between it and the bootjack, there was no way he was small enough or flexible enough to do so. His shoulders were just too wide for the job and he just couldn't bend the way she could. Watching him watch her with a tender expression, she grinned wide and reassuring, "Ready."

They replaced the gasket over the bag and turned the valve for the bootjack, watching the pneumatic bags lift the bag into place. When the gasket was secure against the railcar, Sara opened the valve for the gate opener. Gate open, they looked for the valves for the vibrators and found them, opening them as well.

The vibrators pounded on the side of the railcar. Not wanting to fill the bag up and make it too hard to get out any powder, they closed the valves on the vibrators after a few seconds and closed the gate on the railcar. It would be a slow progression, repeating the process over and over, but it was the only way they knew to control how much cement came out at a given time.

Sara closed the valve on the bootjack and watched as the air bled out of the bags, lowering the bag. She wiggled the gasket off again and began reaching into the bag, scooping out more cement for Grissom to sift through.

After a few scoops, she shifted forward, reaching further down again. She felt a hand clasp her calve and her head shot up, her hard hat banging on the closed gate of the railcar. She twisted around to look at Grissom. "What the…" Her voice trailed off. Grissom's eyes were darting back and forth and he his eyebrows were furrowed. Sara took a deep breath and stilled. "Grissom, it smells like rain." She took another sniff to confirm.

Just then, the skies opened up. Above them, they heard the pounding of drops on the railcar and the lean-to overhead the cyclone. The ground between the railcar and the lean-to quickly saturated.

"Damn," Sara exclaimed, scrambling out from under the railcar, her hard hat falling off as she clambered out. Grissom moved quickly, pulling in all the evidence he'd sifted from the cement under the shelter of the lean-to. He grabbed the bucket of cement powder and pulled it under shelter as well.

Sara grabbed the gasket for the bootjack and maneuvered it back in place. She opened up the valve on the bootjack and watched as the gasket sealed against the railcar. Then, she scrambled up the stairs to the top of the platform and walked down the ladder to the railcar. She'd partially closed the hatches up top before, leaving the open only enough to get air in, but now, with the pouring rain, she sealed the hatches shut, not wanting any moisture to get inside the railcar. So far, everything was contained.

Soaked, she climbed back down to ground level where Grissom was waiting for her. "It doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon," he shouted over the sound of the compressor and the pounding rain.

Sara nodded vigorously. "I know. At least we have everything contained."

Grissom nodded. "We shouldn't leave the compressor running though, but if we shut it down, air will slowly bleed out of the tank and the pneumatic bags under the bootjack will bleed out as well, lowering the bootjack down. We need to prop it up."

Sara nodded again. They moved quickly, getting soaked as they searched for blocks of wood to prop up the bootjack. After they finished propping up the bootjack, they took some plywood and formed a wall around the bootjack, creating a barrier for any rain that may find its way under the railcar.

Sara stepped back to take a look. Beside her, Grissom took a deep breath. She glanced at him. "What did you do with the evidence?"

"It's inside the office for now. I'll pull the Denali up for us to transfer it later."

Sara nodded. She pulled off a glove and ran her hand over her soaking wet head. "I think this may be a good time to stop for break."

Grissom grinned. "I'll get the compressor if you grab us a snack from the Denali."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Sara stepped inside the trailer carrying a bag of apples for the two of them to snack on. She put them down on the desk and turned to Grissom. "Hey, I offered Officer Henley one, so we only have three left."

Grissom nodded, not saying anything in return. His eyes were running over her.

"What is it?" Sara asked.

Grissom stepped before her and fingered a soaking wet tendril of her hair. "Where's your hard hat?" he asked softly.

Sara looked up at him. "Oh, uh, it fell off under the railcar. I meant to pick it up, but we were rushing to get the evidence sealed up and out of the rain. I can go get it."

Grissom shook his head. His fingers pushed her wet hair behind her ears while his thumb brushed away the drops of water from her forehead and temple. "You're soaking wet."

Sara grinned wryly. "Well, it is raining out there."

Grissom cocked his head to the side. His lips puckered with amusement and his hand dropped from her cheek to remove his hardhat. A hand ran through his hair. "Yes, your coveralls and hair are evidence of that."

Sara lifted a hand and trailed her palm over Grissom's chest. "You're not so dry yourself."

Grissom took a deep breath she could feel beneath her palm, causing it to fall back to her side. Inside the warm building, she could feel the humidity as water lifted off her coveralls. Grissom was directly in front of her and she could feel the humidity rise off of him as well. Feeling the damp heat of him so close, she shivered.

Grissom's hand lifted to her shoulder. "Cold?"

Sara shook her head. "No, but I should take these coveralls off and let them hang to dry for awhile."

Grissom's arm dropped and he nodded. "Good idea."

They stared at each other for a long moment before Grissom turned away. "I still have to make that call to Catherine."

He sat down at the desk and pulled out his cell phone. Unbuttoning her coveralls, Sara watched as Grissom maneuvered the phone around, searching for reception. Finally he picked up the office phone, and using his contacts from his cell, dialed a number.

Sara stepped out of her coveralls and found a hook to hang them on. She half paid attention to Grissom's conversation with Catherine while she wandered around the small office.

Grissom hung up and turned to her. "Catherine will sit in on the autopsy when the body arrives. If nothing new comes in, she'll get Greg to go over our evidence."

Sara nodded. She wandered along the narrow counter and spotted a piece of paper on the fax machine. Lifting it up, she let her eyes peruse the paper. "Grissom, have you called Brass yet?"

He shook his head. "No. Why?"

"Railroad faxed us the route of the railcar, including stops and their lengths. It could help him narrow down the missing persons search." She handed the sheet to Grissom.

Grissom took the sheet and read over it as he stripped himself of his coveralls. "It passes through a number of towns, but only stops in a few. The railcar was loaded in Mojave, with a switch in Barstow. It joined the main line at Daggett and had another main line switch in Las Vegas before the last switch here in Caliente. Three nights before it got shipped in Mojave, two nights in Barstow, two nights in Daggett and four nights in Las Vegas. It spent three nights again here in Caliente before being delivered here."

"And one more night before it was unloaded and the body was discovered." Sara finished. She took a seat in an uncomfortable plastic chair next to the desk. "Well, it gives us a start."

Grissom nodded. He stood and hung up his coveralls before taking a seat again. "I'll call Brass."

"Don't forget to call the Sheriff's office in Pioche either."

Grissom picked up the phone again. Sara reached into the bag of apples, retrieving one to snack on. She took a bite and leaned back, listening in on Grissom's end of the conversations with Brass and the Lincoln County Sheriff.

When Grissom was finished, Sara handed him an apple. He took it with a smile, his eyes locked on hers as his fingers brushed hers. "Thanks."

Sara nodded. They sat in a comfortable silence as the both finished off their apples. Sara threw the core out and sat back in her chair, closing her eyes.

"Tired?"

She nodded. "I hate being idle."

Grissom nodded. "Lets run through what we know."

"At this point it isn't much."

Grissom shot her a look, asking her to humor him. Sara shook her head. "Alright, we know it wasn't an accident, because Kurt Cochrane found the latch locked."

"Unless he lied about that."

"Why would he lie about that?"

"To cover himself. If he found the latch open, but didn't check inside…"

"But he said he needed a bar to pry open the hatch and the railway confirmed that they never saw the latch on the hatch open either."

Grissom nodded. "Point well made."

Sara smiled. "There aren't any missing persons in this county, so the body likely originated somewhere down the tracks."

"It could still be early to file a missing persons report here."

Sara shook her head. "Devil's advocate today?"

Grissom shrugged. "Just looking at all angles."

Sara grinned. The door opened. Sara glanced up and watched as the highway patrolman peeked inside.

"Officer Henley, I have your apple here." Sara tossed the patrolman the apple she'd retrieved for him. He caught it and bit into it with a smile.

Sara watched as he held the apple in one hand and chewed slowly. After finishing, he flashed her a grin. "Miss Sidle, thanks for the apple."

Sara grinned. "Sure, Officer Henley. Anytime."

His eyes flitted between her and Grissom. Sara watched as Grissom arched one brow.

"Mr. Grissom, Miss Sidle, my shift is about finished. If I'm not out here next shift, I wanted to let you know that it's been a real pleasure meeting you folks."

Sara grinned. "Getting relieved soon?"

Officer Henley nodded. "Officer Loy should be here real soon, or at least I hope."

Sara arched a brow. "Plans for tonight?"

The patrolman grinned. "My daughter has this recital tonight…"

Sara grinned again. "Here's hoping that other officer makes it here soon then."

Officer Henley smiled. "Thank you, ma'am. Sir, I'll just be outside, waiting in my patrol car. I don't want to disturb you folks."

Sara watched as Grissom returned Officer Henley's smile. "Goodnight."

Sara waved goodbye to the departing patrolman. When the door closed again, Sara felt Grissom's eyes return to her. She glanced back at him. He had resumed his earlier tender expression. "Maybe we should call it a day as well. You're tired."

Sara shook her head.

"Sara, we can't do anything in this weather and it doesn't sound like the rain will be stopping anytime soon." A rumble of thunder punctuated his point.

Sara sighed. Grissom was right. For now, the evidence was sealed off from the rain. They couldn't get at it until the rain finished, which could be some time. She let out another breath. "Shady Motel, here we come."

The corners of Grissom's lips lifted. "I'm sure it's nice."

"Sure, if you like staying in motels."

"You don't?"

Sara shook her head. "Most of the motels we process in Vegas are so seedy."

"We're not processing this one, Sara. Besides, it could be worse."

Sara frowned. "How?" she asked, curious.

"Rumor has it, there is a motel just outside of Caliente that was owned by the FLDS and was the site of several arranged marriages with child brides."

Sara shivered. "That's awful."

Grissom gave a soft nod.

"What about now?" Sara asked.

Grissom shrugged. "New owners I think. It's probably a decent place now."

"It's not the Shady Motel though?"

Grissom shook his head.

"Then, I'll stick to the Shady Motel."

Grissom stood and held out his hand. "Let's go, then."

"We aren't waiting for the new patrolman to arrive and relieve Officer Henley?" She slipped her hand into his and allowed him to help her up.

"I'm sure he'll be here soon."

They slipped out into the pouring rain, locking up the office behind them.

"There sure has been a lot of rain coming down in such a short time," Sara said as Grissom placed his hand on the small of her back to lead her down the stairs.

Grissom nodded. They started to move towards the patrol car to let Officer Henley know they were leaving and would keep an eye out for his replacement on the way, but Officer Henley climbed out of his car and met them half way.

"Mr. Grissom, Miss Sidle, I'm afraid we have a bit of a problem. Dispatch called. The road is washed out between here and town. Apparently it took a rig with it. Officer Loy rolled up right not long after it happened and phoned it in, but apparently the trucker had already called it in. They need someone on this side of the washout stop any other truck traffic that might come by and to watch the scene. Since nobody else can get over here…"

"You're stuck with it."

Officer Henley gave a reluctant nod.

"So much for your daughter's recital."

The patrolman gave Sara a wry smile. "Tell me about it." He glanced between Grissom and Sara. "Listen, it's going to be awhile before they can get that truck out of there, and even longer before they can fill in the road. Certainly not tonight. Late afternoon tomorrow at the earliest."

Grissom nodded. "We'll follow you out though. I'd like to get a good look at it and also see if there is anything we can do to help out."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

The rain made a furious pounding sound on the roof of the Denali. Even with the windshield wipers on full, between the pouring rain and the arrival of dusk, visibility was hard to come by. Sara glanced at Grissom as he inched along the unfamiliar road, and continued to glance at him the further they made it.

The Denali, parked on dry dirt when they had arrived, had been sitting in a mud hole when they left. If it wasn't for 4 wheel drive and large tires, they might not have gotten out. Streams were flowing down the gravel and hollows were filled with large puddles of water. Water continued to stream once they'd reached partially paved road, but the Denali had picked up a little speed. Sara leaned forward to try to peek out of the windshield and found herself looking upwards, towards the sky where the dark clouds had blocked most of the light. "This is crazy."

Beside her, hands gripping the steering wheel, Grissom nodded. He continued to drive slowly, the Denali hitting bumps and potholes filled with rain, while Sara glanced between him and what she could see of the road. In front of her, Officer Henley's patrol car flashed red and blue through the rain and the haze. Slowly it pulled to a stop. Sara frowned. "I can't see anything."

Grissom slowly pulled up to the police cruiser and Sara could see Officer Henley stepping out of his patrol car with a flashlight. She pulled off her seatbelt and got out of the Denali, walking towards him. Grissom was beside her when they met. Visibility was still poor and Sara found she could see little more than the glare of red and blue from Officer Henley's patrol car. "Is this it?" she found herself shouting over the rain.

Officer Henley nodded. He pointed his flashlight up the road, "Right over there."

Sara frowned and walked slowly past the patrol car. Grissom walked beside her, his hand gripping her arm just above the elbow. Officer Henley's flashlight led the way until it reached the point where the road just stopped. It looked as though it had disappeared.

"It looks like a sinkhole." Grissom said, his voice holding a hint of awe. "There aren't any streams here."

"Flash floods…"

Sara nodded. "Yeah," she whispered.

"A lot of the damage done probably came from the rain this morning. Ground wouldn't have settled before this downpour."

Sara nodded absently again. She peeked over the edge of the road. "Is that a lumber truck?" The light from the flashlight had illuminated something slanting up the other side of the large chasm.

Officer Henley nodded. "The road must have given out below his trailer as he drove over. He was lucky it only gave out on his back end. Gave him an uphill slant. He managed to crawl out and Officer Loy was able to get some rope and pull him up."

"I thought he was able to radio it in."

"He did, but couldn't make the climb on his own, so he sat tight and waited for Officer Loy's help. Now he's on the other side, keeping watch."

"How's the driver?" Grissom asked.

Officer Henley shrugged. "Guy's really lucky. Apparently he climbed out with a couple of bruises and a bit of seatbelt burn." He paused and glanced between Grissom and Sara. "Look, I'm not sure there is anything you folks can do out here. I've got to stay here and keep watch from this side, but the best place for the two of you is probably back at the silo office.

Beside her, Grissom nodded. Sara wanted to help out, but there really was nothing they could do. Officer Henley gave her a long look. "The Sheriff said he could airlift in food if it's needed, or airlift y'all out…"

Sara shook her head. "Do you have any food?" she asked.

Officer Henley nodded. "Water, granola bar and half a sandwich still. I told Sheriff Brackett that I was alright for the night, but he was going to check with you as well."

Sara nodded. "We're fine, right Griss?" Grissom gave her a soft nod. The expense of airlifting food to them or lifting the out was excessive. They had food and a dry place to sleep. Besides, if they were airlifted out, they would be wasting time the next day, stuck away from the silo and unable to continue processing the scene. Sara smiled softly at Officer Henley. "Do you need anything tonight? We can make you a fresh pot of coffee."

The patrolman shook his head. "Best you stay off this road tonight."

"We'll bring you one tomorrow morning then."

Officer Henley grinned at her and Sara found herself grinning in return. "Get back in your warm car," she said, "keep dry."

"Yes ma'am. You too. Goodnight Miss Sidle. Mr. Grissom."

"Radio the Sheriff's Office and get them to call us if you need anything," Grissom said. Officer Henley nodded and Grissom led Sara back to the Denali. "He's right. The best place for us is back at the silo office."

Sara pursed her lips. "I guess." She climbed slowly into the Denali, keeping her eyes on the flashing lights ahead of her as she closed the door.

Grissom made a U-turn and drove them back to the site. The wheels of the Denali hit the puddles making it a bumpy ride. Sara held onto the handle above her door and leaned forward, taking note of the muddy mess around the silo and office. Grissom pulled the Denali to a stop before they reached the mud. He leaned forward in his seat as well, surveying the scene. Sara glanced over at him. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking the safest place for the Denali is up on the scale. Anywhere else and it could be swallowed by the mud."

Sara nodded. Grissom leaned back and put the Denali in drive, pulling it up onto the scale. Sara exited and opened the office back up. There was a message blinking on the office's machine. Sara pressed play and listened to the Sheriff describe the washout and advise them to stay put and call for more info. Sara smiled wryly.

"Are you hungry?" Grissom asked softly, coming up behind her.

She was famished, but she shook her head. They had an emergency supply of food in the Denali, but she didn't want to waste it all that night. Who knew how long it would take a road crew to fill in the massive chasm cutting through the road?

"Maybe we should just think about sleeping arrangements." Grissom intoned.

Sara glanced back at him, her eyes wide. His hand found her arm and he turned her slowly. "Sara…"

She felt a sigh escape her chest and she looked down. If they'd made it back to town, they'd have had dinner at some diner and gone back to their hotel. She would have made some excuse to spend some more time together and with the way things had been going lately, there was hope that Grissom would have given in to any excuse she gave him. Though she didn't want to take their growing intimacy to the next step in some motel room, she did long for the chance to just relax with him by choice and not by forced proximity. She also had to admit, given that she'd spent the past few hours contorted between a railcar and a bootjack, reaching in to trowel powdered cement out of a bag, even the lumpiest of mattresses seemed inviting at the moment.

Her eyes lifted to Grissom. His expression was soft. His thumb brushed over her arm and Sara found herself wondering at his thoughts.

His eyes left hers and she watched as he glanced around the small, narrow office. His brow furrowed in a frown. "I think our best option is to pack everything into the front seat of the Denali, out the back seats down and turn the back into a bed. It will be more comfortable than the office."

Sara glanced at the hard chairs and had to agreed. The floor space was only wide enough to accommodate one of them if they made a bed up on the floor there, so it meant that one person would be hunched over the desk in one of the hard chairs. Sara had slept like that a number of times at the lab, but didn't look forward to it that night. The Denali offered them both a chance to lie down, even if their legs were a little bent as they slept. "I agree," she said on a sigh.

Opening the back door on the Denali, they worked quickly to transfer the evidence to the front seat, Sara handing evidence up to Grissom. They stacked their kits on the driver's seat and Grissom popped down the back seats. He pulled out a couple of sleeping bags and undid the zippers all the way. When Sara grinned at him, he shrugged. "I hate getting tangled up in these things." Sara took one of the sleeping bags from him and laid it out for them to sleep on. She pulled out an emergency blanket and laid it over top, leaving the other sleeping bag for last. Stepping back she surveyed the scene.

"Inviting?" Grissom whispered next to her ear and she shivered.

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she turned to him. "What about the possibility of a phone call from the Sheriff's office?" she asked, not wanting to leave Officer Henley stranded. Reception on their cells was spotty.

"We'll put the office phone in here. It should have enough range. I'll grab it after I call Sheriff Brackett and check in with him."

Sara nodded. Grissom glanced at the office. "Do you want to change first?"

Sara nodded again. She moved to the driver's seat and pulled her bag off the floor. Inside the office, she changed into a tank top and some shorts. She left her bag and grabbed the phone as she sprinted back to the Denali and crawled into their makeshift bed.

Grissom joined her a few minutes later, wearing only a t-shirt and boxers. "The Sheriff knows we're set up for the night." He slipped under the blankets beside her and reached forward to shut the trunk door. He wiggled down beside her and lay flat on his back, bringing one arm up and under his neck. Beside him, Sara mimicked his pose and stared up at the ceiling of the Denali. "Interesting day," she said.

Grissom turned his head to the side and gave her a wry smile. "You could say that." He turned his head back so that he stared upwards again. Sara could feel him thinking beside her. "Griss?"

"Hmm?"

"What are you thinking about?"

Grissom sighed. He turned slightly. "Are you comfortable?"

She shook her head slowly. "Not really." She watched Grissom nod, but he made no other move for the moment.

It was silent for several seconds, but for the sound of two people softly breathing.

"This is ridiculous," Grissom whispered. He turned on his side and let out a soft hiss. "Your feet are freezing."

Sara leaned up on her elbow, looking over at him, and shrugged. "You should feel my hands."

Grissom took her free hand and pressed her fingers to his lips. "They are cold," he whispered, blowing warm air over them. Sara closed her eyes and sighed. Her hand dropped to his chest as he wiggled closer to her. His hand landed on her waist and he drew her body closer. Their bent knees knocked together as Grissom drew her in and Sara expected him to pull back slightly. Instead, his leg lifted and his heel hooked onto her calve. Sara slipped one leg between his and ran the sole of her foot along his calve, warming herself on his skin, smiling at the way he jerked beneath her touch. Grissom leaned forward and kissed her collarbone. "Goodnight, Sara," he whispered.

Snuggling into his warm embrace, Sara smiled. "Goodnight, Griss."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

She woke with sore knees, a slight pain in her neck and shoulder and a wonderful warmth over her back, not to mention a tingling on her stomach. She took a deep breath and breathed in the scent of a damp morning mingling nicely with the scent of Grissom.

Briefly she wondered at the time, but knew it had to be early. There was no way she'd slept longer than a few hours cramped up in the back of the Denali. She decided not to dwell on it though. Instead she concentrated the sensations surrounding her.

She'd turned, somehow, in the night. Grissom's body was now spooning hers. He seemed not to have moved, well, apart from his hand. His hand had found its way under her tank top and his thumb was brushing absently over her abdomen. His arm rested over hers causing the hairs on that arm to stand and quiver. His warm breath played over her neck and shoulder. She could feel the heat and hardness of him behind her and she turned, blinking. His hand remained on her stomach as she looked up at him. He was leaning on one elbow and watching her with a soft expression. "How did you sleep?"

"Hmm," she sighed, stretching out lengthwise as much as space allowed, raising her arms above her head. "Best sleep I've ever had in the back of a vehicle."

Grissom arched a brow and Sara grinned. He started to remove his hand from her skin, but Sara quickly pressed her hand on top and held it in place. Eyes wide, she stared up at him.

His eyes flickered to their hands before his thumb hesitantly brushed over her abdomen again. Sara's eyes flickered closed, then open. Her chest rose and fell slowly as she held his warm hand to her belly, feeling his fingers twitch and his thumb make another sweep over her navel. Slowly, he leaned down to peck her lips. "Good morning."

Smiling, Sara clasped the hand beneath hers. "Good morning."

The hand escaped and brushed along her side. Sara turned onto her side, facing him. "What time is it?"

Grissom reached for his cell. "4:30 and I seem to have reception in here." He frowned. "Four missed calls; three from Catherine and one from Brass. I'll call them later." He set the phone down. His hand slid around to her back and drew her closer so that they were entwined much like they were the night before. "You should try to go back to sleep."

Sara tucked herself further into Grissom's embrace. She closed her eyes. "Yeah." It was hard. Though she was still tired, her body was all cramped up. Grissom's hand brushed over her back and she found herself not caring if she was cramped or if she got back to sleep. She didn't want to move.

Tucking her head into Grissom's shoulder, Sara found herself drifting off. Over the next hour she lay on the edge of consciousness, floating in and out of short naps. Waking out of one, she found Grissom's eyes on her again. "Couldn't get back to sleep?"

Grissom shook his head. "Maybe we should get up," he said, his cadence soft, but he made no move other than to graze his hand over her back and shift closer.

Sara was enjoying this slow building intimacy. Waking, she didn't care that they hadn't made it back to the hotel the night before. The soreness of sleeping in the back of the Denali was worth the feel of stirring in Grissom's arms, his light touches and soft intonations. There was something so sublime about the way things were growing between them. It was tender and tentative and held so much promise it left her breathless. She nodded slowly, but made no other move.

Grissom lifted a hand and brushed a thumb softly over her eyebrows. His fingers sat along her hairline and slowly slid in, combing through her hair, matted down by rain and cement dust. His fingers caught in her tangles and she groaned. "It's going to take me forever to wash my hair and comb out these tangles."

Grissom grinned. "So cement dust and water is not the new hair tonic?"

"Yeah, right. I'd put it right up there with bubblegum."

"At least you won't have to cut it out."

"Time will tell," she said.

Grissom laughed and she felt it rumble in his chest. It was a lovely feeling, not just being able to witness Grissom laugh, but to feel it as well. His fingers combed through the edge of her hair again stopping before the tangles. "Your hair will be alright. If not, you'd be cute with a shaved head."

Sara gave his chest a shove. "Don't even suggest it." She flickered her eyes upwards as she fingered her nest of hair.

His hand found her chin and he tilted her head until she met his eyes. "I can't imagine looking at you and not finding you beautiful."

Sara scoffed, but Grissom only shook his head. "No, it's true." He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against hers. "When I look at you, I see this truly amazing woman, and as attracted as I am to you, it wouldn't matter what you looked like. You will always be beautiful. Sometimes it distracts me, how beautiful an individual you are."

"Griss," she whispered and Grissom's lips were on hers. When his hand moved to her back and pressed her closer, she wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss.

When Grissom's lips pulled from hers, she was breathless. Staring at Grissom, she watched the rapid rise and fall of his chest beating a staccato rhythm against his t-shirt. Both were breathing heavily. Grissom's hand lifted and brushed her tangled hair from her face while they caught their breath. Still slightly breathless, he rested his forehead back against hers. "That's not to say, of course, that I'm not physically attracted to you as well."

Sara fell back and began to laugh. Her knees bent, one arm outstretched over her head, she stared up at the roof of the Denali and let the laugh rumble through her stomach. Grissom's hand slid over her stomach as he stared down at her, his expression slightly hesitant. Sara lifted a hand and placed her fingers on his chest. Her expression softened. Her fingers curled slightly, grazing lightly over his torso. Grissom smiled shyly. Sara sighed. "We really should get up."

Grissom nodded and rolled back. Slowly, he sat up beside her and bent forward to open the back hatch. He slid out and stood, stumbling as his knees nearly gave way beneath him. Sara watched as he stretched and groaned and held a hand over his back and she knew he was sore. It was hardly surprising, considering he'd spent a large portion of the day before crouched on the ground, sifting through cement powder, then had slept cramped up in the back of the Denali. She slid to the back, sitting on the edge and letting her feet dangle. Her hands found Grissom's hips and she pulled him back between her legs, kneading at the flesh of his sides and back. Grissom sighed and relaxed into her hands. "Sore?" Sara asked, continuing to knead.

Grissom sighed again. "A little."

She smiled wryly at his back, knowing he ached more than he was willing to let on. Sara leaned forward and pressed a warm kiss to the back of his shoulder. Her kneading slowed and became softer. "Yeah, me too," she replied, hoping her confession would ease some of the insecurity he might be feeling.

Grissom turned and stared into her eyes. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." She smiled at him and gave his side a squeeze. "Nothing a good massage won't rub away."

Grissom arched a brow and Sara grinned. "Quid pro quo?" she asked.

"A massage for a massage?"

Ducking her head, Sara nodded, smiling shyly. "If we aren't still stuck here tonight…" Slowly she lifted her eyes to his. "I could really use one."

Grissom nodded. Smiling softly, his hands landed on her waist. "Here," he whispered, "I'll help you down."

Though she didn't need it, Sara gripped his forearms and allowed him to help her slide from the back of the Denali, onto the scale. They held each other for another moment, before Grissom stepped back and released her. His eyes flickered to the office. "Do you, uh, want to use the office first?"

"You can go ahead if you like."

Grissom shook his head. "Ladies first."

Sara gave him a quick peck on the lips. "In that case, I'll only be a minute."

True to her word, Sara changed quickly and exited the office a minute later. She looked to the Denali, but didn't see Grissom. "Griss?"

Grissom appeared around the corner, bearing her hardhat. He strolled up to her and held the hard hat out to her. "I rescued it from a puddle."

Sara shook her head. "And got your shoes all wet, Sir Walter."

Grissom shrugged. "They'll dry. I'll be in steel-toes all day anyways."

Sara took a step down and looked around at the mud where they were first parked the day before and the puddles of water that pooled on the cement and the scale. From her vantage point, she couldn't see the railcar or the landing where the cyclone and blowers sat. "What does it look like back there?"

"Wet," Grissom replied, "and a little messy. The cement dust that we didn't get cleaned up has turned into a bit of goo, but the bootjack stayed up with our propping, so all the evidence looks to have been well sealed from the rain."

Sara nodded and went to take a look while giving Grissom his turn at getting ready in the trailer.

It was like Grissom said, a little wet, a little mucky, but the evidence they needed protected by the railcar and the wood props they'd put under the bootjack. She returned to the Denali and began cleaning up the back, folding the blankets and sleeping bags so that they could transfer evidence from the driver's seat and front passenger's seat into the back.

"Hey," Grissom said, peeking out the office door, "I started a pot of coffee in here. Are you hungry?"

Sara was famished. They'd gone to bed without eating the night before and had only had an apple for a snack earlier. "Famished."

Grissom nodded. "Let's see what we can ration out of what we brought."

Sara nodded. She always made sure to pack quite a few snacks for road trips and knew Grissom often did the same, though she suspected he often packed more for insects he might find on a corpse rather than for his own sustenance. "I'll grab us the food."

A minute later, Sara strode into the office and took a seat in one of the hard plastic chairs. She handed Grissom a granola bar. "Unless you want the last apple…"

Grissom shook his head. "This will do."

Sara nodded and opened up the wrapper on her own granola bar. She also had a sandwich, but figured she's split it with Grissom closer to lunch. There were a couple chocolate bars and a bag full of almonds still in the car, not to mention whatever Grissom had tucked away in his bag still.

Grissom handed her a cup of coffee. "I was thinking we should drive up and see how the road work is coming, or if it's even started yet."

Sara nodded. "We promised Officer Henley coffee as well this morning. We'll have to scrounge up a to-go cup."

"I have one in the Denali," Grissom replied.

Sara nodded. "Did you phone Catherine and Brass?"

Grissom nodded. "Left a message with Catherine. I told her the office phone here was the best bet. My cell lost reception once I hit the outside steps."

Sara finished off her granola bar and leisurely sipped at her coffee. When they were done, Grissom ducked out of the office. He returned shortly after, carrying a couple of bananas and a travel mug. He handed her one of the bananas and the mug. Sara peeled her banana, biting into it as she filled the travel mug with coffee and sealed the lid with her free hand. "Ready to go?"

Grissom nodded. He quickly finished off his banana and followed her out of the office, his hand on the small of her back.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

The chasm across the road didn't look quite as endless in the light of day as it had the evening before. Still, the erosion beneath the road had left quite the gap and Sara wondered if they would be able to properly fill it by the end of the day.

Standing in between Officer Henley and Grissom, Sara sipped at her coffee and stared forward. On either side of her, Officer Henley and Grissom did the same. "Some of the tracks for the auxiliary line washed out as well," Officer Henley stated in conversation.

Sara nodded. The line was just off the road, so the same forces at work on the road would have taken out the tracks as well. The rail line would be low priority in comparison to the road, so Sara knew they wouldn't be impounding the railcar any time soon. As she stared forward, she was glad they had decided to process the car on site.

Across the chasm, road crews were just arriving on site. Heavy machinery pulled up and Sara could see the operators standing and gesturing to try to figure out the best way to pull the truck and trailer out of the chasm. "It'll be hours before they get that truck and trailer out," Sara said to nobody in particular.

Both Officer Henley and Grissom looked at her. Grissom nodded. "They aren't even going to be able to begin filling in the road until late morning or early afternoon. After they get the truck and trailer out, they'll still have to clean up the lumber."

"Not to mention all the fill they will have to import when they do get started on road repair," Officer Henley added. He glanced between Grissom and Sara. "Looks like we'll all be stuck here another night at least."

Sara nodded. She turned to Grissom. "Well, we might as well fill our time with work."

Grissom nodded. Officer Henley smiled at them. "Thanks for bringing out the coffee. Much appreciated. Officer Loy offered to radio me if he spotted lights on this side of the chasm so I could get a little shut-eye, but I didn't get much of a sleep in the front seat of my patrol car."

Sara winced sympathetically. "Sure thing. You need anything else?"

Officer Henley shook his head. "I'm probably about as set up as you are."

"Still, call us if you need something…some water…more coffee."

The highway patrolman nodded. "Thanks again."

They left him with his coffee and slowly meandered back to the truck-load silo. Once parked back on the silo, they exited the Denali and entered the office. Sara immediately began donning her work cloths, slipping into her coveralls, still slightly damp, and pulling on her steel-toe boots. All of her personal protective equipment came on next. She waited for Grissom to catch up, and then followed him to the back of the trailer, watching as he turned on the compressor.

Once they had enough air to lift the bootjack off of the props they'd put under the evening before, they removed the props and opened up the gate on the railcar. Sara vibrated some cement down and closed the gate again. She repeated the process from the day before, removing the gasket from the bootjack, trowelling out cement powder for Grissom to sift through until the bootjack bag was empty, and then replacing the gasket and reopening the gate to start all over again.

They repeated the process several times, until Sara had the railcar completely empty of cement, nothing falling into the bag for Sara to scoop out. A trip to the top of the railcar confirmed the empty car, and all of Sara's muscles rejoiced. Placing her hands on her hips, Sara arched her back and closed her eyes.

"Sore?" Grissom asked, his voice soft.

Sara opened her eyes to him and nodded. "I can't tell you how relieved I am that that's over."

Grissom nodded. "Let's take a break."

As they moved toward the office, Sara took in the landscape. What had been puddles early that morning was once again parched earth. Sand swept across the landscape. Mud had dried and cracked. There was not a trace of water left on site.

They sat down in the office, sharing Sara's veggie sandwich and discussing what Grissom had pulled out of the cement while sifting. It hadn't amounted to much, only a few more shards of glass, a piece of cloth, a couple chunks of foam matching the foam from the bootjack gasket and a green zip tie Grissom figured the railroad used to mark sealed hatches on the railcars. "Almost a waste of time," Grissom told her in apology.

Sara smiled in reassurance. "We couldn't have known that. Besides, we had to process the car properly."

"I know," Grissom stated. "I just wish it wasn't so hard on your body to do so."

Sara shrugged. That kind of thing came with their line of work, though Sara wasn't sure she had ever had to contort her body that much to do so. She'd been in plenty of tight spaces, but never one punishing every muscle in her body with such harshness and precision. At the moment, her muscles were so twisted and cramped, Sara wondered if she'd be able to stand up straight the next day. "It's fine," she said. "Maybe that piece of cloth we pulled out will help us."

Grissom shrugged. Sara knew it was doubtful. The cloth was likely ripped off from the vic's clothing, but it would not help to identify him. Still, Sara arched both her brows in hope. Grissom sighed. "Yeah, maybe, if we can ever get it to trace."

"So what now?" Sara asked.

Grissom let out another sigh. "Well, the dust collector gathers whatever product has been unloading, so we should empty it and sift through it if possible, and we still have to figure out how to process the cement in the silo."

Sara nodded. "Kurt Cochrane said there was about one hundred tons of cement in the silo when he began unloading the half car. How much is half a car, Griss?"

Grissom looked around the office and spotted a clipboard with railcars and weights on it. "That railcar had 92 tons in it."

"So half is 46 tons. Add that to the one hundred. Depending how much cement that truck driver took out on his load, I'd say we have between a hundred and a hundred and twenty tons of cement left in the silo."

"The trailer is at the Sheriff's office in Pioche. The cement was emptied out before anybody stopped it, so any evidence that was inside was lost."

Sara shrugged. "Cement would have come out the bottom of the silo. Given that the railcar was only just unloading when the load was taken out, it would be next to impossible for any evidence to make it to the bottom of the silo in time to become part of that load, so I doubt we lost anything to it. So, back to the amount, do we know how much was taken out?"

"Kurt Cochrane said yesterday that it was a semi. According to the chart on the walls here, they fill semi trailers at twenty to twenty-four tons."

"So roughly a hundred and twenty tons of cement in the silo, give or take a few tons."

"Wait a minute," Grissom said. He lifted up a clipboard. "I have the amounts right here." She watched as he did some quick calculations. "There was 102.43 tons of cement in the silo at the start of yesterday. The entry for yesterday's load is incomplete, but it does have an amount. 24.02 tons."

"So, including the amount Kurt Cochrane put in, 124.41 tons."

Grissom nodded. "Just under. Not quite all the cement from that half went in, remember."

Sara nodded. "Great," she sighed. "Figure out how we're going to do that yet?"

"My thoughts are that we'll have to get someone out here to load it into trucks and offload it somewhere we can sift through it."

"Only we can't get trucks or workers out here."

Grissom nodded, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.

"So what now?"

"Now, I call the lab. See if they've got anywhere with the evidence we did get sent out, or if they have an ID on the vic. Afterwards, I'll try Joe Dryden's office and see if somebody can walk us through getting into that dust collector."

Sara nodded, sitting back against her chair. She closed her eyes and listened to Grissom's half of the phone conversation with Catherine.

When she heard Grissom hang up, Sara opened her eyes. "So, what did Catherine have to say?"

"Doc Robbins isn't finished with the autopsy yet, but Catherine pulled prints from the vic and they matched some of the prints found on the tops hatch of the railcar and on some of the glass we sifted out of the car."

"Some of them?"

Grissom nodded. "Mandy is running the rest of the prints through I-AFIS."

"Did the vic's prints give up an ID?"

Grissom shook his head. "No, but Greg and Brass did find a few possibilities in missing persons. A couple are in Vegas, but there just so happens to be a couple of possibilities in Mojave and Daggett. Greg is working on the Vegas side while Brass is coordinating with California State Patrol, trying to get a positive ID for us."

"Vegas, I can see, but both Mojave and Daggett have missing person possibilities within our time frame and possibly matching our suspects description?"

Grissom nodded. "Apparently."

"What are the odds on that?"

Grissom shrugged. Sara felt his eyes shift over her frame. "How are you doing?" he asked.

She smiled tentatively. "I'm alright."

"We still have to process the gate," he whispered, hesitation obvious in his tone.

Sara groaned. Just the thought of having to contort her frame once again had her muscles and joints protesting.

"I can try, if you like," Grissom whispered.

Sara shook her head. "No, you can't, Griss. You won't fit."

"Without the gasket in the way…"

"You could lie on your back beneath the gate. You would still have to bend up and into the gate of the railcar." She gave him a soft smile and leaned forward, grasping his arm and giving it a gentle squeeze. "Thank you, but I'll be fine."

She moved to get up, but Grissom stopped her. "No hurry, Sara. Rest a little while longer."

She did, sitting across from Grissom, knees touching, enjoying the comfortable silence in his proximity and listening as he put in the call to Joe Dryden. Her eyes slipped closed and head fell backwards. The next thing she was aware of was the bump of Grissom's knees and the sound of his chair sliding back. Then, his hands were on her shoulders. She hissed in response and her eyes shot open.

"Sorry," Grissom said. She turned and looked at him, watching as he rung his hands in the air, looking apologetic and inadequate.

"It's alright. I guess my muscles are too tight for a massage to be anything but painful."

Grissom pressed his lips together. Sara stood up and stepped in front of him. "Griss, it's alright, really." She eyed him and whispered softly, "Maybe we should just get back to work."

"Sara…"

"Griss, the sooner I process the gate, the sooner it's finished. I can begin to recover after."

Grissom nodded. "Alright."

Sara smiled hesitantly and turned, exiting the office, Grissom following behind.

After contorting herself for another hour, Sara rolled out from under the railcar for what she hoped was the last time. Grissom offered her his hand and helped her up.

Sara stood and wiped at her forehead with the sleeve of her coveralls, nudging up her hard hat in the process. "I think that's it," she said, placing a piece of fabric into a baggie. "We've got chunks of flesh from the gate tracks. I've swabbed the gate, but there's no sign of blood. There weren't any prints, but we got a couple more piece of cloth for trace."

Grissom nodded. She watched as his eyes lifted and glanced over the railcar. "Has anyone checked the hatch on the other half car?"

Sara frowned. "No. I don't believe so. Kurt Cochrane never mentioned it and we were too busy with this half." She moved to the steps up to the platform around the silo and made her way back to the top of the railcar.

After moving the safety cage over the far hatch of the railcar, Sara helped Grissom lift the hatch, handing him a bar to pry open the stubborn hatch. "It's sealed shut, just like Kurt Cochrane said about the first half."

Grissom nodded. The cement must have got wet and sealed the lid of the hatch to the opening."

"It sealed the handle as well." Sara pulled back the hatch lid and peeked in. "Griss?"

Beside her, Grissom leaned forward and stared into the railcar. His gloved hand reached down and carefully lifted up a bottle. "Vodka."

Sara nodded. "Look at that almost perfect shoe print."

"It's hardened into the cement. We should be able to break the cement around it and pull it up." Taking the bar Sara had handed him earlier when they'd needed to open the hatch, Grissom thrust the bar down and broke a wide circumference around the shoe print. "The cement up here must have gotten a little wet for the cement powder to have hardened like this."

Sara nodded. Once Grissom was finished breaking off the hardened cement, Sara climbed in and lifted the boot print out. "It's different from the shoe prints I took out yesterday." Something else caught her eye and she crouched down on the cement. "Griss." Her gloved fingers handed him another green zip-tie.

Climbing out of the railcar, Sara helped Grissom bag the evidence. She looked down at the cement and at the crater left behind from them digging out the shoe print. "Grissom, what if there is another body down there? It could have worked its way under the cement as the train moved."

Grissom's eyes narrowed. "There were missing persons from both Mojave and Daggett…"

"What do you think we're looking at?"

Grissom shrugged. "I wish I could tell you."

"We need to empty out this railcar."

"We can't," Grissom stated. "To do that, we'd have to do it the same way as Kurt Cochrane did, meaning we'd have to vibrate everything down and possibly damage evidence. This half will have to wait until the railcar can be brought to a disposal area. Then it can be emptied without having to suck and vibrate everything out."

"The rail line is damaged though, and won't be fixed until after the road is fixed."

"It will have to wait until we can get the car out of here."

Sara nodded. "So, dust collector?"

Giving Sara a nod in return, Grissom moved over to the dust collector. "Joe Dryden got a mechanic on the phone who told me that there was a side panel we could remove. Most of the cement dust collected should be in separate bags that we should be able to just lift down from hangers to sort through on the ground."

Sara followed him around. "Griss?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I found it." She pointed up at a side panel. Grissom stood by her side. "We need a ladder."

Wandering around the site, they found a ladder attached to the back side of the trailer that made up the office. Unstrapping it from the support beams, they carried it back to the dust collector and leaned it up against the side. Grissom took the snap straps that had fastened the ladder to the support beams beneath the office and carried them up the ladder while Sara held the ladder steady. Using the snap straps, Grissom fastened the ladder to the dust collector to keep it from slipping. Carefully, he turned the levers on the panel and lowered it down to Sara. "I count sixteen bags in here, all full."

Sara placed the panel down, leaning it up against the trailer. "Can you get at them." She watched as Grissom reached in and nodded. "They are a bit heavy, but I can reach all of them. I think we should concentrate on getting them all out of here first before we begin to empty and sift."

"I'm ready whenever you are."

Sara watched as Grissom reached in and unhooked one of the bags from the hooks it was suspended on. He pulled it out of the dust collector and lowered it down to her. One by one they repeated the same steps, Grissom unhooking the bags and lowering each one to Sara to place to the side, until all the bags were out of the dust collector. After handing off the last bag, Grissom climbed down the ladder.

Brushing off his gloves, Grissom glanced at all the bags. "I think we should place a tarp down and sift each bag one by one. Are there any pails left to put the cement into?"

"A couple I think. I'm not sure they will hold all of this, though."

After searching for any remaining buckets, they found they had three empty ones and one that they had only half filled. "This will give us a start," Grissom said. "We'll might have to improvise later."

Sara laid out a tarp and emptied one bag onto it. Sifting through the bag, they found nothing more than a few clumps of cement, which they bagged up. After emptying out almost ten of the bags, they had filled all the buckets and found only a couple fragments of glass. They sifted through the remaining bags and piled the cement up into a mound on the corner of the tarp. Bagging other shards of glass, a few pieces of foam and a strand of cloth of some kind, they set the evidence aside. Grissom then moved to the back of the trailer where the compressor sat and returned with a handful of heavy duty plastic bags. "Sample bags," he said. "We can fill these up and put them with all the buckets."

They troweled the pile of cement into sample bags and put all the buckets and bags into the back of the trailers. Sara watched as Grissom shut down the compressor and close up the back of the trailer. She slapped at her coveralls, sending cement dust floating off into the air. She sighed. "So what now?"

"Now we call Catherine for another update."

They did just that. Back inside the office, Sara listened to Grissom's half of the conversation with Catherine. When he hung up, Sara looked at him expectantly.

"The victim died of asphyxiation. His lungs had filled with cement dust, choking him."

Sara winced. Drowning in cement, it was an awful way to go. "What about the wound on the back of the vic's head?"

"It bled out slowly, but it wasn't the cause of death."

"Any ID?"

Grissom shook his head. "They're bringing in next of kin for all the missing persons possibilities, hoping to get a positive ID from one of the families."

Sara nodded. "So that's it, for now." She watched as Grissom shrugged. "There isn't much else we can do right now," he replied.

Sara wiped her hands on her knees and sighed. It was sit around and wait time. The only problem was that this time, she wasn't at the lab, sitting around and waiting for results. Instead, she was stuck at the end of a one way road in out in the middle of somewhere very near nowhere and sitting around and waiting for the only route out of there to open up.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Evening encroached on afternoon as the two CSIs gave thought to what they were going to do. Covered in cement dust, Sara's first thought was to find a way to wash up. The office had a sink, with running water, but there was no on site shower. Sighing, Sara used rags from the office to wash her body and made an attempt to wash her hair in the sink as best she could. It wasn't the hot shower she'd been longing for, but at least she was something near to clean. Feeling a little fresher, she gave Grissom the office to do the same.

When Grissom was done with his own washing up ritual, they decided to taking a drive down the road to check on progress on the washout. They winded down the partially paved road, swerving to avoid pothole and cracks in the concrete. When they pulled up to the washout, Officer Henley strolled over to the Las Vegas Crime Lab Denali and gave them a warm smile. Stepping out of the Denali, Sara returned Officer Henley's smile. "Good afternoon."

"Afternoon, Miss Sidle, Mr. Grissom. What brings you out here?"

Sara shrugged. "We can't do any more from this side right now."

"What'd you have left to do?"

Sara let out a sigh. "We need to get the railcar to a disposal unit to finish processing it and we still need to process the cement powder in the silo, but can't do that until we get a truck and driver back out here. We also don't know what to do with the cement once we sift through it."

"So what you're saying is that you really need this road to open."

Sara gave the highway patrolman a rueful smile. "Yeah. Anytime soon would be nice."

"Would it ever."

"Anxious to get home?"

Officer Henley nodded. "Ma'am, you've got no idea. Almost as anxious as my wife is to have me home."

Sara chuckled. "I'll bet."

"Hey," Officer Henley began, "you need something to do with all that cement? You could always take the cement powder and dump it in here, use it as fill. It would solve both our problems." He nodded towards the chasm in the road.

Sara shook her head. "Dry powder cement wouldn't make good fill. It's not gravelly and would just get eroded away quickly in the rain. It would just turn to goo and run. In order to be at all effective, it would need to be mixed, and we can't do that out here. Besides, roads aren't made of concrete, but asphalt."

The officer nodded. "It was meant as a joke," he told her, not losing his smile.

Letting out a soft laugh, Sara shook her head. Of course it was a joke, only she was far too tired to realize it. "Sorry," she told the officer.

"No problem, ma'am. Getting a little punchy here myself."

Sara nodded. "How's it coming?"

"Getting there," Officer Henley said. "Should be able to drive on it tomorrow. They put in some drainage piping as a precaution and had to haul in a bunch of gravel, otherwise it would have been finished today. Tomorrow's looking good though. I told the Sheriff they'd better be done tomorrow, otherwise they'll be needing to airlift us in food real soon."

The thought of food had Sara's stomach growling. She looked across the chasm and thought of everything that lie on the other side. A lab to process evidence. A restaurant serving up a hot plate of food. A bath filled with steaming hot water. A warm bed. She followed Officer Henley to the edge of the washout and looked at all the work being done. Grissom stood beside her. Feeling the warmth of his shoulder next to hers, she sighed. "Another night," she whispered.

She felt Grissom's eyes on her. She glanced quickly over at his steady blue gaze and turned back to the dump trucks and other construction vehicles on the other side of the rift. She cleared her throat. "Officer Henley," she began, looking at him, "how would you like to join us for a picnic dinner?"

Officer Henley awarded her another smile. "That'd be real nice, Miss Sidle."

They scrounged what they could from Grissom's lunch and rationed off some dinner, spreading it out over the hood of the Denali. The scant remains of food that they decided to save for the next day went back in the Denali. Sara eyed their small meal and felt her stomach give a sharp stab of pain. She was so hungry that the meager meal before them did not look at all sufficient. She wasn't used to not eating. Even when she pulled triples, she always had plenty to snack on. She thought that they had been well prepared, but even with all the food they'd packed, rationing was taking its toll.

She ate her ration, distracting herself from the lack of food by making conversation with Grissom and Officer Henley. Officer Henley carried most of the conversation, telling the two CSIs all about his wife and three young children. After carrying their conversation well past the time they'd finished eating, Grissom suggested they return to the silo and get ready for bed.

They returned to the silo and followed the same routine as the night before. Once in the back of the Denali though, Grissom insisted Sara sit up. She felt his chest against her back as his hands fell to her shoulders. "Not much I can do in this space," he whispered.

Sara winced as Grissom's hands attempted to work out a knot. "Sorry," he whispered and his hands shot back as though they'd been burned.

"It's okay," she returned softly, trying to offer him reassurance. She didn't want to scare him off when he was trying to help. Her muscles were just so tight, any attempt to loosen them was bound to cause some pain. "Just a little sore."

"A little?"

Sara shrugged.

Grissom's hands slid over her shoulders. "I'm so in awe of you," he intoned quietly.

Sara turned her head sharply and felt the kink in her neck. She looked at Grissom with wide brown eyes. He merely shrugged in response. "I am. You work so tirelessly, despite the conditions. Your muscles have been twisted into the tightest knots these past couple days and you haven't complained. You're a bulldog, Sara, and before you say anything, that is meant as the largest possible compliment."

Sara bit her lip and gave Grissom a shy smile. She slipped out of his hands and scooted forward so that her legs were dangling out the back of the Denali. "The sun's setting, Grissom."

Grissom slid behind her again and she leaned back into him. They watched the sun set over the painted landscape. When the sun dipped down on the far horizon and disappeared from view, Sara closed the back of the Denali and slipped into their makeshift bed.

"I'm glad it's you here with me," Grissom said, crawling down next to her and drawing her body into his. "And not just because you don't complain."

Sara grinned. "Me too," she whispered, snuggling up against him. She didn't care that her muscles were aching beyond belief. If Grissom was stuck here, she didn't want to be anywhere else.

Grissom's hand slid around her stomach and clasped hers. "Sara?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm not at all tired."

Sara smiled. "Me neither."

"Do you have any suggestions?"

Sara turned in his arms and arched a brow. Watching his expression, she laughed softly. "Why don't you tell me a story?"

"About what?"

Sara shrugged. "Anything." Years back, Grissom used to tell her lots of stories about his early days as a CSI. Those stories had become fewer over the years and when they did come out, they almost felt sadder in tone. "Tell me about the first road trip you had to take as a CSI."

Grissom grinned. "That story is a bit embarrassing."

Arching a brow, Sara looked at him. "Really? How so?"

"I'm not sure I want to tell you."

Sara smirked. "Not even to use it to teach me something?"

"Somehow I doubt you would have ever found yourself in that situation. However, I did learn a few lessons over the course of that one."

"Is this about the time you lost a body?"

Grissom shook his head. "No, but it's equally embarrassing."

Sara chuckled. "Okay, now you have to tell me."

Grissom gave his head another shake and sighed. "You do know that while I don't believe in luck, a part of me is inclined to think I might be a little jinxed when it comes to road trips."

Sara grinned. "Is that why you usually send somebody else?"

Grissom nodded. "You, of course, have heard all about when I went to Jackpot?"

Sara nodded. "And had your Denali broken into and your kit stolen."

"Among other things, yes."

"Yeah, we all heard all about that."

"Well that was a picnic compared to my first road trip. My first road trip was back when I was working for Hennepin County. It was out to a town in Northern Minnesota called Outing, if you can believe that. It was winter, and out there, in the winter, to get your vehicle to start, you often had to have it plugged in all night or the motor would freeze up. Well, one day I forgot to plug my car in over night and I couldn't get it started the next morning, so I had to be picked up. I plugged my car in and got a ride into work. I worked through that shift and took home one of the department's Range Rovers. Not learning my lesson, I forgot to unplug my own vehicle and plug the Range Rover in overnight. The next day, Philip Gerard sends me off on my first road trip out to Outing. I didn't want to go into the lab and grab another Range Rover when I had one parked back at my place. I also didn't think they'd give me one. At the time, I was pretty green and thought I'd just take my own personal vehicle, which we all did every so often. Besides, Philip was planning on sending out another criminalist to help process after that criminalist got out of court that day. I was thinking I'd be doing the preliminary and would have help when I actually began to gather evidence. Then, we'd just transfer that evidence in that other criminalist's Range Rover back to the lab in Minneapolis. Well, the criminalist who was supposed to be joining me got called out to another scene in the city. I didn't find out until I was in Outing. So there I was in central Minnesota, a California boy alone, driving my personal vehicle in a snowstorm.

"At the time, all I could afford to drive was a little Rabbit. It was small, not too bad on the wallet and absolutely terrible in the snow. It was not a car for winters in Minnesota. How I even managed to get up to Outing was beyond me. The car slid all over the road even though I was doing a good fifteen miles under the speed limit. I did make it though, and arrived to find a body frozen in the snow bank just off the lake, outside of town.

"My first though was exposure and about what a waste of time it was for me to go up there. I figured the guy had tried walking through the snow and got stuck in the snow bank. The thing about that snow bank though was that it wasn't natural. The snow bank had been formed by a plough and the way the body was frozen in there, there was no way it could have been an accident."

Grissom paused to take a breath and Sara found herself studying his face. He was shaking his head softly and his lips were slightly curled up at the corners. "In Jackpot, nobody was cooperative, but in Outing, everybody had their opinion and their theories and the whole town showed up to offer them. Nobody knew the victim. When we finally got an ID, it turned out the dead body was a missing person from Duluth. A couple of people from town had recognized him though. A gas station attendant had remembered seeing him filling up an old truck, while a waitress remembered serving him coffee at a local café. Other than that, nobody had seen him around. That didn't stop them from weighing in on the investigation though. The town had gathered and the opinions and the theories came out. A comment became a conversation, which led to a debate, all done in a reasonable tone and a heavy mid-western accent. They never so much as argued as they drew up other points, debated the merit of each of those points, reached a consensus before another comment would be made and the whole process would begin again. It was next to impossible to actually question anybody. I felt like an outsider, watching the whole thing, rather than the person doing the questioning.

"Getting the body out was another debate. Every townsperson had his or her opinion on that one as well. They debated the feasibility of each option, drew up lists of pros and cons, debated what belonged in each category and reached more consensuses until another suggestion would pop up and inevitably begin the whole round again. A police cordon didn't seem to exist. The Sheriff was watching and sipping coffee with the owner of the local hardware store, getting the advice on the best ice pick while the local fishermen weighed in on their favorite tools to use when ice fishing and debating the use of an ice auger. The deputies held back the crowd with their arms, until they thought somebody had a reasonable suggestion as to how to go about freeing the body from the pile of ice and inevitably let that person through, and the next, and so on, until nearly the whole town was standing around the snow bank.

"Somebody from town set up a coffee maker and a hot chocolate maker and was handing out free cups to the crowd. This wasn't the regular morbid curiosity we often see, either. Those folks weren't seeing a dead body so much as a problem to be deliberated over and solved, and I had no idea how to deal with any of them."

Sara chuckled. "I can just imagine you…"

"All lost and awkward?"

Grinning, Sara scooted closer. "Something like that. How come it was so hard for you to get the body out? You couldn't just dig it out?"

"Oh, I tried, at first. Started with a shovel and some patrolmen and we tried to dig it out, but it was really frozen in there. That's when the debates began. Somebody suggested heavy equipment and I asked for a CAT, but in breaking up the ice, it broke off an arm…"

"You broke off an arm?"

"You know how easy it is to break off body parts on a frozen body. Besides, we can't be entirely sure that the arm hadn't broken off before."

Sara smirked. "Sure."

Grissom gave her a playful shove to the hip, before sliding his hand to her back and drawing her back in. "Somebody else suggested melting all the ice, but I was worried about losing evidence, and that began another round of debates."

"So how did you get it out?"

"Continued to dig. I got an ice pick to help out, the hardware store manager giving me his recommendation on the best one."

"You didn't go for the ice auger?" Sara teased.

Grissom shook his head. "It wasn't a popular choice with the winter fishermen, but I had the backing of the gas station attendant, Presbyterian minister, grocer and hardware store owner, not to mention the local butcher, who held a lot of sway in that town. Using the ice pick, I was able to carefully extract the body and the arm. It was my first lesson in going slow to go fast. And all of the townspeople agreed afterwards that yes, it probably was the best way to get the body out even if it was the slowest."

Sara laughed.

Grissom grinned at her. "Laugh away. If you were to imagine being in an episode of _Newhart, _I imagine it would run something like that. And it didn't stop once we got the body removed. I set up in the Sheriff's office and people were constantly coming by to offer suggestions and theories on other things. It wasn't like those tips we get here in Vegas from people who see us on the news and want the attention. This came from somewhere else entirely. Almost every person in that town genuinely believed they could help. Of course, all that helpfulness was mostly a hindrance, but…"

"You didn't know what to do."

"Yeah. I tried to be polite about it and when that didn't work, I got frustrated with them, which only made them feel sorry for me, being from the city and under all that stress I must have been under. They all offered me a place to stay while I was there and when I chose to stay in a motel, I had about twenty hot plates of food brought to my motel room. Fifteen of those were plates of roast beef and mashed potatoes. The thermoses of gravy came separate."

Sara shook her head and laughed. "At least you were well fed."

Grissom looked at her softly. "Yeah."

Sara cupped his cheek. "Hey, this isn't about now. We'll have a hot meal tomorrow. Go on with your story."

Giving her a smile, Grissom drew her in closer. "Well, they brought in the Cass County coroner, who determined that the victim was killed by blunt force trauma, so then I knew I had to keep searching for evidence. I figured it was a hit and run and the perp tried to hide the body by burying it in the snow bank. Then, as the roads got cleaned, more snow got piled on and changes in the weather turned that snow into ice. The body was discovered as the pile of snow was pushed back to accommodate the snow from the snowstorm. It was a long shot to solve, but I figured I still had to dig for evidence in the snow bank and give it a shot.

"As you can imagine, digging through ice for evidence wasn't easy, but at least there was always a cup of coffee waiting for me the moment I needed it. After about forty cups of coffee and about the same number of pieces of advice that went along with each cup, I managed to work the section of snow bank down to almost nothing. And I did manage to find some evidence in that snow bank as well, but as I told you, I wasn't driving a company vehicle. I put what little evidence I had into the back of my Rabbit. That's when disaster really hit."

"What happened?"

"When I went to pull out, the car spun-out and got stuck in another snow bank. The town, being as helpful as they were, got together and about ten of the men helped to push me out. One of them advised me to gun it on his word. They all pushed, I got the word and I slammed my foot down on the accelerator. The car shot out of the snow bank, hit a patch of ice and went flying straight into the lake, cracking through the ice that rimmed the edge of the water."

Sara's eyes shot wide open. "Were you alright?"

"Oh yeah. I wasn't in there long. The whole town was there to immediately pull me out. They wrapped me in blankets right away, got hot liquid into me and I only suffered mild hypothermia. I ruined all the evidence though, as well as my car. The car was towed out, but the motor was shot after that. And I got to watch as my little car was pulled from the lake with the entire town of Outing beside me, all shaking their heads at my misfortune and offering me their condolences and a hot meal of roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy."

Sara threw her head back and started laughing again. She could see the people of that town, bundled up in snow gear, all watching as Grissom's car shot out of a snow bank and into a lake, their heads snapping to the side as their eyes followed the car into the bank. Then, pulling him out only for Grissom to realize he no longer had a vehicle to drive home. "How long were you stuck there?"

"Two more days. Busses were cancelled due to the snowstorm, but I hadn't money to pay for a bus anyways. My wallet was in the car. I didn't get it back until they got the car out, but at least I never had to pay for a meal in that time."

"Let me guess, you got twenty plates of flapjacks for breakfast the next morning and had hot roast beef sandwiches for your lunches."

Grissom grinned. "Right on the lunch, but it was twenty plates of flapjacks, Canadian bacon and scrambled eggs for breakfast."

"Close enough. Then, you got your wallet back and first bus out, you were on it."

"Yeah, though it wasn't because I couldn't wait to be away from the people in that town. They were the friendliest, most accommodating group of people I'd ever met, even if they were a cross between the characters of _Newhart_ and some of the characters from the movie, _Fargo. _That case remained unsolved, though I'm certain that the person who hit my victim wasn't from the town of Outing. The only consolation I could draw from the whole thing was at least the victim's family got a little closure. They got the body back…and the arm. They could stop searching for him."

"And now, you think you might be jinxed when it comes to road trips for work."

Grissom lifted a brow. "Case in point, this trip."

"You think this was a jinx?"

Grissom looked at her, narrowing his brows in thought. Slowly, he shook his head. "No…" He pulled her body right into his, wrapping his arms around her. "No, I guess not." He paused for a second, tilted his head back and smirked. "If you weren't here with me though, I'd be more than inclined to believe that it was."

Chuckling, Sara kissed his chin. "Yeah, maybe." She stared at him for a long moment before turning in his arms and tugging on his hand until his arm was wrapped around her and his chest was pressed against her back. "Goodnight, Griss."

Grissom's arms tightened. "Sleep well, Sara."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

It was a nice sleep, despite the aches and the stiffness, and the inability to rotate her neck once she woke up. Still, she'd fallen asleep for the second night in a row to Grissom's warm breath on the back of her neck.

She was awake before him, so she took the opportunity to lie there and savour the feel of Grissom's body wrapped around hers. She wanted to turn and watch him, to witness how the light hit his sleeping form in the morning, to see how his eyes fluttered upon waking. She was too sore though. Trying to move made her wince and as she stiffened, Grissom's hold reflexively tightened on her. Relaxing against his chest, she decided to be content with that feeling and leave the witnessing of how Grissom looked when he awoke to later. It was something she could finally hope to look forward.

After some time, Grissom stirred behind her. She sat up carefully, exiting the back of the Denali, and prepared herself for the day, first dressing in the office and then, starting a pot of coffee. She let Grissom do the same, tidying up the back of the Denali while he took his turn in the office. When she moved back inside, Grissom was on the phone.

He held his hand over the receiver. "Catherine," he whispered.

Sara nodded. She waited for him to hang up and handed him a cup of coffee. "What's up?"

"We've got an ID on our victim. His name is Dale Jensen, seventeen, from Daggett. Catherine said Brass relayed it to the police in Barstow to interview the last people to see the victim alive. They'll be getting statements today."

"Any word on any of our evidence?"

"Some of the prints retrieved are a match to our victim. Partials were found on the broken glass and we got a clean one from the rim of the hatch. There are still a number of prints to account for, unknown, but Mandy was able to determine that some of those prints belonged to at least three other people. She grouped them by person. DNA results are also in off the bottle. There are three contributors, one of them being our vic. The other two contributors came back unknown, but both belong to males."

Sara nodded. "Good. Even if we're stuck, at least we are still getting somewhere."

Grissom sighed. "That's about all we are going to get for awhile. We need that road to open."

Cradling her hot coffee in both hands, Sara took another sip and nodded again over her mug. "So how about we head on down there, bring Officer Henley his morning mug and go watch the progress? Maybe we'll be able to get out of here soon."

Smiling, Grissom gave her a soft nod. "Alright."

They finished off the remainder of fruit they had brought and sipped the last of their coffee. After filling a travel mug for Officer Henley, they headed down the road.

Officer Henley greeted them with a bright smile that belayed none of his fatigue over spending the past couple nights watching over the lonely stretch of road by the washout. "Hey-ya, progress is moving along steadily. Sheriff made some calls and made highways get off to an early start this morning. Said if they didn't get the road filled today, he'd have to airlift in food for everyone and they would get the bill. Sure lit something up under them. Got the crews out before the sun."

Sara chuckled. She handed Officer Henley his coffee and settled next to Grissom, leaning against the hood of the Denali.

Officer Henley stood with them, making small talk as he sipped on his coffee. When he finished, he offered them a polite thank you and headed back over to his patrol car. Sara stood silently, watching the work being done while revelling in the warmth of Grissom's arm against hers.

Grissom placed his hand over hers, causing her to glance up. He stared out over the road crews on the other side of the washout. "I never thought that if I had idle time in this area, I would spend it staring out at a road washout."

"What did you imagine spending your time out here doing?"

Grissom shrugged. "Exploring the landscape. There are some pretty interesting places out here, Echo Canyon, Cathedral Gorge, Ash Spring… You know, Zane Grey used this area in quite a few of his novels. Caliente was one of his favorite writing spots."

Sara smirked. "Is that so?"

He nodded. His fingers curled over her hand. Sara leaned into him slightly, trying to be discreet but unable to resist the temptation altogether. "It would be a great area to hike around, but being workaholics doesn't leave much time, does it?"

Grissom shook his head. "I've always let external things dictate my priorities, work being the primary one."

Sara nodded.

"I don't really want to do that anymore."

Sara glanced back at him, her eyes holding a steady gaze on his profile. He turned and looked at her. "What do you think about coming back to this area for a couple days when we get a shared night off?" he asked, his voice sounding so vulnerable.

Sara turned her hand over and gave his a gentle squeeze. "I think I'd like that."

Grissom smiled softly. "Yeah?"

"As long as we don't come when the weather could cause a flash flood and road washout."

"I think we can manage to avoid that."

"Then, yeah, I'd love to come back here with you."

Several hours later, Officer Henley strolled back over to them and announced that they were about to open the road to them and he was just waiting on the word. Sara and Grissom strolled over to his patrol car and waited with him. A large highway truck drove over the gravel and parked on their side. The truck was followed by a patrol car that Officer Henley said was on the way out to the truck-load silo to take over watch there now that the road was close to reopening for traffic. The patrol car stopped by Officer Henley's unit and the older officer introduced himself to Grissom and Sara before heading out to the silo. Meanwhile, two flaggers got out of the highway truck and began setting out construction signs. One of the two flaggers walked over to the patrol car. "Alright, you folks are good to go."

Officer Henley nodded. He reached into his unit and grabbed his radio, confirming that he could be relieved from his post. With the okay, Sara watched him climb into his patrol car. "Finally get to go home."

"Yeah," he said, his relief coming out with the word.

"Enjoy your rest and your time with your family."

"Yeah, you have a good rest too. It was great to meet you, Sara. You too, Mr. Grissom."

Grissom nodded and led Sara back over to their Denali. "Let's take this evidence into Caliente, drop it off at the Sheriff's substation for transport back to Vegas and then find a diner and grab a good meal."

"That sounds like the perfect idea right about now."

They climbed into the Denali and followed Officer Henley's car over the gravel patch in the road. The Denali dipped down onto the gravel, wheels kicking up rocks and dust and climbing back over the ridge that led again to pavement. They winded their way back to Caliente, reaching the town in the late afternoon. "Civilization," Sara sighed, "or something close to it."

Grissom smirked. "You are sounding a little like Catherine."

Sara swatted his arm. "Hey, after two nights with no shower, sleeping cramped up in the back of the Denali and eating rations, I'm entitled to get excited at the sight of a town."

Grissom's eyes softened. "Yes, I guess you are." He cleared his throat. "We can try be quick at the substation so that we can go eat."

Sara nodded. Grissom pulled into the Sheriff's substation and immediately began the paperwork for transferring evidence. A young patrolman, just getting on duty, took over chain of custody and loaded up the evidence into his unit for immediate transport to Vegas. Grissom and Sara watched him leave and then headed for the town's only diner.

There was no such thing as a veggie burger and no matter what the fare, the vegetable portion was almost non-existent, but as Sara dug into her grilled cheese sandwich and fries, she wasn't sure when she'd had a more satisfying meal.

Across from her, Grissom was nibbling away on his club sandwich and fries and, watching her with amusement as she scarfed down her food. Afterwards, they both ordered some homemade apple pie and discovered where the real treat lie. Sara didn't quite finish hers before her stomach started to ache from eating so much after having so little over the past couple of days. The pie was too good to waste though, so she took the rest of hers to go, to be finished in the morning.

The two criminalists strolled back to their motel and checked into their rooms after apologizing to the clerk about the delay in their arrival. The Sheriff had already explained the situation to the motel and had made sure that the motel held their rooms for them for the next couple of days.

Once she got to her room, Sara immediately headed for the shower. What she really wanted to do was soak in a hot bath all night, but feeling like the sink washing of her hair the night before was not nearly sufficient enough, washing her hair was priority and she didn't want to wash out any remaining cement powder only to soak in it afterwards. After triple washing it and working in double the conditioner she normally would, she finally felt like her hair was clean. She rinsed out the bathtub and immediately filled it with hot water, so she could attempt to soak away some of the stiffness in her muscles.

When the water started to cool, Sara stepped out of the tub. Her hands bore deep wrinkles from being in the water too long, but her muscles felt slightly more relaxed, though the aches had not disappeared, only diminished slightly. Towelling off, Sara put on her last clean pair of cloths and laid down on the double bed.

Keeping her body flat and free of movement, she stared up at the ceiling. She knew she should find somewhere to do her laundry as most of it was covered in a film of cement dust, but she was still too sore and too tired to contemplate moving yet. Instead, she lay still, trying to avoid the aches she'd developed from processing beneath the railcar and sleeping in the cramped up back of the Denali. A soft knock on her door had her gingerly rising from the bed and opening the door to allow Grissom entrance. "Hey Griss," she greeted warmly, taking in his clean figure. He looked and smelled as though he too had just stepped out of the bath. His damp hair curled atop his head and he had on a clean set of clothes.

"Hey, I know you probably just want to lie flat for the next several hours, but I had a thought."

She arched a brow. "Yeah?"

Grissom took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I promised you a massage."

Sara grinned. "Come on in," she said.

Sara watched as Grissom squeezed by her and sat awkwardly on the bed. She closed the motel room door and moved over to him, sitting next to him. Grissom shifted his legs so that Sara sat between them. His hands found her shoulders and began to massage gently.

Sara relaxed into his hands, or at least she attempted too. There were too many knots and whenever Grissom's hands began to work on them, she winced.

"I'm hurting you." He withdrew his hands.

Sara shook her head. "No, it's okay. They are just tight. My bath loosened them, but…"

Grissom nodded behind her. His fingers worked lightly over her back. "I thought about taking you to some of the natural springs around here tonight to see if that could help, but I thought you were probably too tired to want to go anywhere."

Sara closed her eyes and nodded. She was too tired. The hot water from the bath and the disrupted sleeps of the past couple nights had her nearly out before Grissom knocked. Besides, she knew the hot springs were on another road, on the way out to one of the canyons and she wasn't sure she wanted to chance heading out into the middle of nowhere again after just having got back into town. "It was a nice thought, but you were right. I am too tired for that. I'd probably have fallen asleep in the springs."

Grissom withdrew his hands again. "Am I keeping you up?"

Sara turned sideways and looked at him. "No…no. This is nice. I needed this and if I remember our deal, I owe you a massage in return."

Grissom smiled. His index finger turned her head back around and his hands returned to her shoulders, tenderly moving towards her neck. "You need a real one of these when you get back to Vegas."

She turned her head to glance at him. "Massage?"

Grissom nodded.

Sara looked forward again. She closed her eyes and let her head fall forward. "I'll settle for this right now." Grissom continued to work on her, stilling every time she winced before returning to her muscles. When he started to slow, Sara figured he was either getting tired of massaging her or his hands were getting sore. She twisted out of his hands and crawled around behind him. "Your turn," she whispered, bringing her hands up to her shoulders and revelling in the opportunity to feel him under her hands.

His massage never lasted near as long. A few minutes after she began, Grissom stood up, turning to her. "I should go. We should try to get a good night's sleep."

Sara bit her lip and nodded. Grissom glanced at the door and then looked back at her. So quick she could barely process it, his lips swooped in and pecked hers lightly. "Goodnight, Sara."

Sara blinked. "Goodnight." She watched Grissom leave and then lay down on her bed, resuming her study of the ceiling. She was dead tired, but couldn't sleep. Her mind was too busy processing the past few days and she missed Grissom's warmth. After a half hour, she decided she'd memorized enough of the ceiling and crawled under her covers. Fluffing her pillow, Sara tried to get comfortable. Just as she closed her eyes, there was another soft knock on her door.

Grissom stood in the doorway again. He looked slightly hesitant, shifting on his feet before her. "I couldn't sleep," he said.

Sara nodded. She let him in and watched as he lay on the bed opposite hers. Crawling in her own bed, Sara faced him. They began to make small talk and then moved onto the case again, outlining the plan for the next day. They talked until Sara felt herself yawn and her eyes drift shut.

"Griss?"

"Yeah?" he whispered in response.

"I really need to do a load of laundry. All my clothes have a layer of cement dust on them."

"Mine too. We'll quickly do a load tomorrow morning."

Sara nodded softly, though she doubted that Grissom saw it. Opening her eyes to check, she noticed him on top of the covers, nearly asleep as well. Slipping out of her bed, she approached the other bed and tugged the covers from beneath him so that she could tuck him in. Just as she was about to smooth the blankets over him, he lifted the covers in invitation. Smiling, Sara slipped in next to him and cocooned herself in his warmth. His lips pressing softly to her forehead was the last thing she remembered before slipping off into sleep.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Sara woke early the next morning, feeling the weight of Grissom's arm across her shoulders. His soft breaths floated across her temple. She tried to turn, but was pinned by his weight, so instead, she allowed herself a moment to enjoy the feel. Grissom's leg wound between hers and she felt him stir. His hand grasped her shoulder and tugged. Smiling, Sara managed to turn on her side in time to watch his eyes flutter open. "Morning," she whispered.

Grissom's eyelids flickered closed and then open again. "Good morning. How do you feel this morning?"

Sara found herself biting her lip. "Better. Still sore, but not nearly as much."

A slow smile spread over Grissom's lips. "Good."

Sara stretched out, causing her t-shirt to rise up slightly. There was a slightly heated look in Grissom's eyes as his hand fell to her waist and his thumb brushed over the bare skin. Sara stilled, her eyes locked to his face, watching as his gaze flickered between hers and his hand. She took slow, even breaths, waiting to see if his hand would venture further. A light caress over her stomach was followed by his hand sliding back over her waist and curling around her side. Her hand came up to his back, lightly brushing over his tee. Her eyes flitted closed as his hand moved softly up along her side. "Do you feel well rested?" he asked, his tone soft.

Sara's eyes slid lazily open again. She nodded. She was well rested. There was very little work they could do the day before so they had mostly spent their time talking the case out and calling for updates before getting a much needed meal and much needed rest.

"Good," Grissom said, "because we must have slept about ten hours."

Sara's face shot to the side to glance over at the clock. Ten hours? She couldn't recall a time she had ever slept that long. They had gone to sleep early, so the early morning read out on the clock was a little misleading. She thought back to when they had curled into sleep and discovered that they had indeed slept for approximately ten hours.

Grissom chucked at the look on her face before his expression turned to a tender gaze. "Are you ready to face another day?"

Sara nodded. Grasping her shoulder, Grissom leaned towards her and placed a soft kiss on her temple. "I'll get up and let you get ready. Meet me in the motel office?"

"Alright."

Grissom's hand slid lightly down her arm as he slowly got up. Giving her a shy smile, he turned and left her to get ready. Sara watched him leave and then stretched out on the bed, a wide smile blooming across her face. Propping herself on her elbows, she stared at the door, still grinning wide.

When she finally made it out of bed, Sara gathered all of her dirty clothes to do a load of laundry while they got some breakfast. She threw on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt to wear while her laundry was being done, and carried the rest of her clothes to the motel office to meet Grissom.

Grissom had his own load of clothes in his arms and was asking with the desk clerk about where to get them washed. After the clerk at the desk gave him directions to the town's only Laundromat, Grissom led Sara out to the Denali.

"We should stop by the bakery for something to go and eat it while our clothes are washing. We should also grab some extra food…just in case."

Sara slipped into the passenger seat and nodded. "Good idea." She watched as Grissom took the driver's seat and closed his door. He fastened his seatbelt and started the car. "I spoke to Sheriff Brackett. He said that the road out to the truck-load silo is still not open for regular traffic, so he'll swing by the motel to give us an escort out. I asked him to have Joe Dryden and Kurt Cochrane come along as well."

Sara nodded. "What time is he stopping by the motel?"

"He was just leaving Pioche. I told him we were going to do some laundry and get some breakfast, so if he gets to the motel before us, he'll just wait."

The Sheriff did end up having to wait, but it wasn't for long. He had just pulled into the motel a few minutes before Sara and Grissom returned from breakfast and laundry. As it was, they still had to wait for Joe Dryden and Kurt Cochrane.

When they returned to the motel, Sara quickly changed into clean clothing and met Grissom again by the Denali. As soon as Joe Dryden and Kurt Cochrane pulled up, Sara and Grissom piled into their vehicle and followed Sheriff Brackett out.

They drove over that same dip in the road, still getting filled in, passing the workers already on site. Pulling up to the silo, Grissom parked the Denali off to the side, where he'd parked it when they'd first arrived so that it was out of the way of the scale. Joe Dryden and Kurt Cochrane parked beside them and the group made its way into the Office.

Grissom placed his kit on the floor and turned to the other occupants of the room. "Our priority is emptying out the cement silo today, but first, I have a question for you, Mr. Cochrane."

The young labourer looked at Grissom. "Yeah?"

Grissom pulled out the green zip tie he'd found a couple of days earlier. "Do you know what this is from?"

Kurt Cochrane took the zip tie and held it in his fingers before handing it back to Grissom. "It goes on top of the railcars. It gets wrapped around the hatch up top to confirm that the hatch was sealed."

"And if it's broken off, it means somebody broke the seal?"

Kurt Cochrane nodded.

"Did you notice if this railcar's tie was broken?"

The young labourer's eyes widened. "No, I never, but not all railcars have them. More often than not, they're leaving the ties off these days."

Grissom nodded. "I think this railcar had a tie, but that it fell into the railcar when the hatch was opened."

Kurt Cochrane stood silently. Sara noticed that Joe Dryden gave his young employee a quick look to chastise him for not noticing the broken seal. She watched as Grissom also took in the exchange. He cleared his throat. "Now that we have the zip tie confirmed, we can move to how we are going to empty that silo. Now that everything is dried up, we were debating between loading up the trucks and finding somewhere to sift through the cement, or possibly dumping a little onto the scale at a time and sifting through it slowly here. Loading the trucks will be very time consuming, and cause lots of dust when we blow the cement out of the trailers, but we could sift in an area sheltered from the elements. Sifting here on the scale would still be a slow process, also very dusty, but quicker than the other option, and Sara and I could stay together and not have to split up to supervise each end of the work. We were leaning towards blowing out the cement elsewhere so that we could keep it contained."

"And those are your only two options?" Joe Dryden asked.

Grissom nodded. "I'm not sure how else we could do it."

The site manager shook his head. "No, that would waste over 100 tons of cement. That's a huge loss in product, and the mess it would make and we would have to clean up…"

Grissom arched a brow. Joe Dryden turned and began to pace.

"I have an idea."

Three faces snapped to Kurt Cochrane. He shifted on his feet as they waited for him to speak.

"Well?" Joe Dryden asked, his tone displaying his impatience.

"Maybe we could rig up a small screen to the top hatches of all the trailers, so that the cement sifts down into the trailer and can then go to a redi-mix able to take it. We'd have to load the trailers very slowly and it will be really dusty, so we'll need to don respirators, but the screen should catch most of what you might be looking for and the rest of the product would go into trailers where we could either blow it back into the silo, or have ready to take for outgoing loads. If we still have product sitting in the trailers after the outgoing loads, we could phone the redi-mixes and see if any of them could use a topping up in their silos. That way these folks could still sift for whatever it is they're still searching for and we could save most of the product."

Grissom grasped Sara's arm and tugged her off to the side. "We might lose some to the trailer."

Sara nodded. "Depending on the size of the screen, we should be able to get most of it though. If the screen is small enough, most of the powder will likely sit on top of the screen, allowing us to sift through the majority of it. We've already got all the larger stuff and we knew, given the conditions, we weren't going to be able to get everything. What we lose might be too small for us to find anyways, and given that whatever evidence might be left has been immersed in cement powder, we don't know how usable it will be. We don't even know if there is any evidence in there at all. It's worth a shot."

Grissom nodded in return. He shrugged. "It really isn't any different than how we sift for trace in the desert."

"The only difference is that in the desert, the dirt and sand gets double sifted."

"Which it is here, as well. The screen on the bootjack sifted out most of the bigger stuff for us anyways. Besides, we never thought we'd find much of use in that silo. Most of the evidence that could be of use, we already pulled from the railcar and the bootjack. If we get a small enough screen, I think we can sift through most of it and lose very little, if there is anything to find. It actually seems like a better option than dumping the cement or blowing it. Doing that, we'd have evidence all over the place and any clumps in the cement might get broken up. We do have to make sure we get all of the clumps though. The smallest amount of liquid can cause the cement powder to clump, so that is where I think most of our trace in that silo will come from."

Sara nodded. She and Grissom moved back over to Kurt Cochrane and Joe Dryden. "Where's the smallest screen you can find?" she asked Kurt Cochrane.

The young labourer grinned, looking happy to have redeemed himself a little. "We have a really fine screen we use for sifting clumps out of flyash."

Slowly, they set about getting to work, donning their coveralls and PPE's. Joe Dryden, the only one at the silo licensed to drive a semi, hooked up to a couple of joined trailers and parked the semi on the scale so that one of the trailer's hatches lined up with the loading hose from the silo. They rigged a very fine screen onto the trailer's hatch and Joe Dryden slowly let out a block of powder, trying not to spill cement dust all over the place. He closed up the hose and lifted it so that Grissom and Sara, perched on top of the trailer, could sift out what they could for trace.

Dust flew out with every dump of cement, dirtying their safety glasses over and over and making Sara thankful she had her respirator on. The work was slow, seemingly taking the better part of the day. They had three B-Trains to load in order to empty out the silo, and so far, they'd only managed to pick up a few pieces of trace, most of it being small clumps of cement and tiny shards of glass likely from the bottles of alcohol, not large enough to get caught by the grate on top of the bootjack.

They were just beginning to load the pup from the last B-Train when something caught Sara's eye. She sifted through the cement powder and lifted it up with gloved fingers. Her other hand lowered her respirator. "Griss, check this out."

Holding the object between her thumb and index finger, Sara let Grissom take a look.

Grissom lowered his respirator to his neck. "A ring?"

"It looks like a class ring." Sara brought the small ring up to her eye. "Silver Valley High School. Class of 2005."

Grissom frowned. "That ring is brand new. The school year isn't even finished yet."

Sara nodded. "They must have ordered them in for graduation and if that's the case, they couldn't have had the class rings for very long. I wonder if it belonged to our vic."

"I'll call Brass get him to relay it with the Barstow police to check with Dale Jenson's family."

Sara nodded. She pulled out a small baggie and dropped the ring inside. Sealing up the baggie, she placed it in her pocket.

It took a couple more hours before they got the last of the cement out of the silo and apart from a few small lumps of cement, they did not pull anything else off the screen. Finding the ring was huge though and Sara was glad the time it took to sift out all the cement in the silo was not wasted. Coming down from her perch on top of the trailer, Sara helped Grissom load up the Denali.

On the drive back to Caliente, they found the dip they had driven over last night and early that morning had turned into a bump, slowing them like a speed bump would. They debated heading straight back to Vegas since they had released the scene, but they had put in a very long day and were tired. Catherine and Brass hadn't called with any updates on the evidence they'd sent the day before, so they were sure processing on all of it hadn't been finished. They decided to stay another night and head back early in the morning, after getting some rest.

Since they were not heading straight back, they needed to secure their evidence. They dropped it off at the Sheriff's substation in Caliente before heading back to the hotel to clean up and grab a bite to eat.

Sara showered and met Grissom by the Denali. They drove to the diner, ate much of the same fare as the night before and then headed back to the motel to finish off Sara's apple pie from the night previous.

After finishing off the pie, Sara readied herself for bed, while Grissom excused himself to make a phone call to Brass. He returned to her room dressed in his pajama pants and a t-shirt. "I spoke to Brass."

Sara cocked an eyebrow at Grissom as he slipped past her and into the small motel room. "And?"

"Dale Jenson's class ring is accounted for. His parents found it on his dresser."

"So the ring belongs to somebody else."

"Somebody who went to the same school as Dale Jenson."

"What about the last people to see Dale Jenson alive? Did Brass get their statements?"

"His parents told Brass that he was going out to a party the night he went missing. They gave the name of his best friends but when the Barstow police interviewed his friends they all said that they were supposed to meet Dale but he never showed."

"Somebody is lying. There were more than one set of prints on that hatch and somebody had to close it."

Grissom nodded. "If the ring isn't Dale Jenson's…"

Sara nodded. Her brow pinched in a frown. "They just got those rings. Whoever lost it might have tried ordering a replacement. It should be easy enough to do at this time of year."

Grissom's lips lifted into a slow smile. "Greg can check that in the morning, but even if whoever lost that ring didn't order a replacement, we can still see who ordered one in the first place. The school will have records on every student who ordered a ring. Barstow police can check which of Dale Jenson's classmates is missing a ring, get prints and try to match them to the prints we lifted from the hatch on the railcar."

Sara nodded. She watched as Grissom shifted slightly on his feet. Biting her lip, she glanced between him and the bed. "I guess we should get some sleep so that we can head back to Vegas early tomorrow morning."

Grissom gave her another small nod. Slowly, Sara walked towards the door and slid the chain lock on. She moved past him and crawled into the bed they had slept in the night before, leaving space open and the covers off so that Grissom could crawl in beside her. After a moment, Grissom did just that, pulling the covers over both of them and drawing her into his arms.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

They awoke early again. After a quick breakfast, they packed up and checked out of their hotel. Then, they were on the road, making a quick stop at the Sheriff's substation to pick up the evidence they'd bagged the day before.

A few hours later, they were back in Las Vegas, pulling into the lab. Sara climbed out of the Denali and made her way around to the back to grab their bags of evidence so that she could log it in.

Carrying the evidence in both hands, she made her way through the lab's halls, past many of the dayshift personnel.

"Sara, why are you walking so funny?"

Sara glanced up at Greg and gave him a rueful smile. "I'm a little sore Greg. I had to contort my body into some awkward angles to get at our evidence."

"That must have been an interesting scene to process, and with all that rain you got up there."

Sara gave Greg a small smile. "It was alright. At least the railcar kept everything contained. What are you doing here?"

"I figured you guys would be getting back soon. Besides, I was checking up on that ring you asked about. Silver Valley High School faxed over the sheet of all the grads who purchased rings, but we don't have to check those, because we got lucky. One grad ordered a replacement. Caleb Leffurgy. He sent in the order four days ago."

"Nice."

Greg nodded. "Right? And here's the kicker. His name was given to us by Dale Jenson's parents. He's Dale Jenson's best friend. The Barstow Police are getting his prints for us. We should have them in time for Mandy to run a comparison tonight."

"Nice work, Greg."

Greg grinned. "Thanks. I also worked up DNA on those cigarette butts and that joint. They run along the same line as the alcohol, the vic and the same two unknowns as the alcohol bottle. DNA on the joint came back to one of the unknowns. Oh, and those fibers you found, Hodges found that they were all matches to the vic's clothing. They had traces of grease on as well."

Sara nodded. "Likely from the gate on the railcar. Great job again, Greg. You're really on top of things back here."

Greg's face flushed. "Anyways, I thought I'd let Grissom know. Where is he?"

"He's talking to Brass. He wanted to call Brass as soon as we got in."

Greg's face fell slightly. If Grissom was speaking to Brass, then Brass was no doubt giving Grissom the rundown on what Greg had found. Sara knew Greg wanted to be the one to give Grissom their suspect. She understood that feeling. She gave him a half smile and thrust a couple of bags of evidence at him. "Here, give me a hand, will you?"

Greg caught the bags Sara had thrust at his chest and took them from her. They carried the bags to the layout room and spread out the evidence.

Sara separated off the clumps of cement from the rest of the evidence. "This will have to wait for Hodges tonight, but I want to try to pull prints from the rest."

Greg nodded. He began separating the glass between what could be printed and what was too small to get anything off of. Taking the glass the Greg had separated off for printing, Sara carefully dusted, until she was finished with the glass and left only with the ring.

Carefully lifting the ring with her gloved fingers, Sara began to dust. She hoped to get at least a partial off the face, something that may have come from their suspect playing with the ring, or placing it on his finger. With nothing usable coming off the ring, she swabbed it and then bagged the swab and ring separately.

Just as she was about to pack up the evidence, Grissom entered the layout room. He glanced at her before focussing on Greg. "Greg, Brass tells me you found out whose ring we may have."

Greg nodded. "Caleb Leffurgy. He's the victim's best friend."

"Good work, Greg."

Greg beamed. Sara watched as Grissom ignored the grin and turned to her. "I came to see if you needed help."

"All done. Greg helped me. I just have to log everything in for now and put it in the queue to be processed."

"I'll help you."

Sara nodded. She grabbed a box for the evidence. She finished packing it up and turned to Greg. "Thanks for your help, Greg."

Grissom took a box from the table and waited for Sara to step in front. She glanced back at Greg over her shoulder before leading Grissom to the evidence locker.

After logging in the evidence in the evidence locker, Grissom turned to Sara. "I guess I'll see you later tonight."

Sara looked up at him and pursed her lips. "Yeah."

"Have a good afternoon, Sara."

Her mouth twisted up into half a smile. "You too."

Grissom nodded. "You should go out and get a real massage."

Her eyes shining, Sara smiled at Grissom. "I don't know. I rather enjoyed the one I got a couple nights ago."

The comment earned her a smirk. "Never-the-less…"

Sara found herself grinning. "I'll see you later, Griss."

She turned, forcing herself not to look over her shoulder at Grissom. As she walked away, she wondered what she was going to do with an afternoon to herself.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

In the end, Sara hadn't taken Grissom's suggestion and got a massage. Instead she chose a hot bath, followed by a nap in her own bed and a trip to her favorite vegetarian restaurant for a good meal. She returned to the lab an hour before her shift, retrieving the prints that Barstow police sent over, before setting herself up in the break room.

Catherine filtered in about a half hour later, pouring herself a coffee and taking a seat on the sofa adjacent to Sara's chair. "I am so glad you guys are back. Leading two shifts has done a number on me."

Sara smirked against her mug of coffee. "Any word on when Ecklie is going to get the shifts changed back over?"

"Next week, he claims, when Nicky gets back. He's still trying to figure out who to put in charge of swing since Sofia jumped ship last month."

Sara turned in her chair and studied Catherine. "And you're sure you don't want it? I know Grissom wants grave back together, and so do I, but I think if you wanted to supervise, he'd be happy with getting Nick and Warrick back."

Catherine shook her head. "I discovered that I am not ready for that job yet. I mean I can do it. I can. I'm just not sure I want to and I definitely don't want swing. I'm not ready for the extra time it takes away from home. I worked enough overtime before, but now… I'm already never home in the evenings. I almost never see my daughter anymore and Lindsay, well Lindsay's been…"

Sara nodded. She knew all about the trouble Catherine's daughter had been getting into.

"Besides," Catherine continued, "the job had me paranoid. I was always looking over my shoulder. I even thought Grissom was trying to sabotage me for awhile there."

Sara fought her grin. She took a long sip of coffee and placed her mug down. "You're right, if you're imagining Grissom as trying to sabotage your career, it's time to step back."

Catherine laughed. "Before I turn into Ecklie, right?" She turned to Sara. "Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, Ecklie wanted me to let you and Grissom know that the railroad is going to be out repairing that line of track by Caliente tomorrow morning, so your railcar should be at the Vegas disposal station by tomorrow afternoon or evening."

"Oh, great. I wasn't sure when they would get to that."

"What do you need with the railcar?"

"We want to see what's in the other half. Both sides were open, and we retrieved a shoe impression and an empty bottle of vodka from that half, so we just want to make sure there isn't another body buried in it. There was no other disturbance to suggest it, but..."

Catherine nodded. She took a sip of coffee and stopped short when her beeper went off. "419. If you see Grissom, let him know I got a call out?"

Sara nodded. "Sure thing. Need any help?"

Catherine shook her head. "I'll call Grissom if I need it. He should be able to send out Greg if I need him. Warrick will be around to help cover anything else that comes up."

Sara nodded again. "Have fun," she called out to Catherine's departing figure.

A few minutes later Warrick came in, taking a seat in the spot Catherine vacated. "Welcome back. Did you have a nice trip?"

"If your idea of nice is camping out at a truck-load silo because of a road washout, then yeah, it was a nice trip."

Warrick laughed. "You made it back alright, and you didn't kill Grissom."

Sara bit her lip. She was saved from responding by Greg bounding into the room. "Grissom here yet?"

Warrick shook his head. "Why? You anxious to get out into the field."

Greg nodded. "Yeah. Catherine's had me in here processing Grissom and Sara's evidence for the past couple days." Greg shot a glance to Sara. "No offense."

"None taken." Sara smiled. "I can get a little anxious when I get cooped up in the lab too, Greg. Has it been slow around here?"

Greg moved to the coffee pot and began to brew a fresh batch from his own stash of grounds. "No, but Catherine and Warrick have been getting all the scenes while I've been stuck in the lab. They needed someone to process and since Catherine won't let me do a solo..."

"You think Grissom's going to let you out on a solo?" Warrick asked.

Sara tried not to smirk as Greg let out a sigh. "Maybe if I beg him. Don't tell him, but he's actually a much softer sell than Catherine."

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that Greg."

All eyes in the break room shot to the door. Grissom stood in the entrance. Sara had to really fight the smirk as Greg's head dropped.

"You think you are ready for a solo?"

Greg's head shot up. Sara watched as Greg's face moved from excitement to disappointment as Grissom's expression told him that in no way was Greg going out alone. Greg's head dropped again. "No, but it would be nice to get back into the field. Please, Grissom."

"You can meet Catherine at her scene and help process for a few hours. Transfer whatever evidence you have back to the lab, but if she needs you to process evidence here, that's where you are."

Greg's face lit up. "Thank you, Grissom."

Grissom nodded. Sara watched as he handed a slip to Warrick. "Home invasion in Henderson. Call if you need help."

Warrick nodded and slipped out the door, giving Sara a quick wave as he left. Sara turned to Grissom. "Anything else?"

Grissom shook his head. "Unless Warrick needs help, we can keep going with our investigation. What were you working on?"

"I have prints from our suspect for Mandy to compare. I was just on my way over to drop them off. Then I was going to head to trace and drop off all of our evidence from the cement silo off with Hodges."

Grissom nodded. "I'll get the trace for you."

Quirking a brow, Sara asked, "You're volunteering to go to Hodges?"

"Would you rather?"

Sara shook her head. "Oh no you don't. You volunteered." She caught herself staring him straight in the eye in challenge. Grissom smirked and held her stare. Finally her eyes dropped and she turned to the door, Grissom following her out.

Prints from the Barstow Police Department in her hand, Sara walked with Grissom to retrieve the other prints from out of the evidence locker. Dropping them off with Mandy, she found herself hovering around, waiting for results.

Mandy shook her head, not looking up from her processing. "You know Sara, sometimes you can be as bad as Nick."

Sara stepped right in the lab. "It's a straight comparison. I figured you'd be quick."

"I will be, but pacing around like that doesn't get the results any quicker. Visual comparison under the comparison microscope shows a match to one of the sets I'd grouped, but I scanned the 10 card into the computer to run another comparison just to be sure."

Sara nodded. She moved next to Mandy and watched as the computer pulled up the scanned prints and ran the other prints pulled from the case, searching for a match. The screen lit up with a match just as the computer beeped. Mandy pulled the sheet from the printer. "Bingo. Prints on the rim of the hatch, the bottle of vodka and on a few of the glass fragments are a match to your suspect."

Grinning, Sara took the sheet from Mandy's hands. "Thank you." She turned and strode off to find Grissom.

Grissom was in his office when she found him. She strolled in and took a seat across from him, handing him Mandy's printout. "Caleb Leffurgy's prints are a match to prints we took off the alcohol bottle, glass fragments and the top hatch of the railcar."

Grissom's eyes scanned the sheet. He looked up at Sara. "I'll call the Barstow Police Department."

Sara nodded. She sat back and listened to the one sided conversation. A few minutes later, Grissom hung up the phone. "Barstow Police Department are going to bring Caleb Leffurgy back in first thing in the morning. Now that we're sure the crime happened in Daggett, San Bernardino has jurisdiction, but since we've done all the processing, they've asked us to come in for the questioning so that we can see the case through."

"That was reasonable of them."

Grissom shrugged. "Well, if it goes to court, we're going to have to be the ones doing the testifying anyways." He took a deep breath. "Anyways, how do you feel about another trip?"

There was a grin playing at Sara's mouth. Grissom, seemingly reading her thoughts, smirked. "A quick one this time, just to Barstow to present the evidence and then right back. Hopefully there won't be any road washouts on the way."

Sara smirked. "I don't know. I will be traveling with somebody who may be jinxed when it comes to road trips."

Grissom returned her smirk. "You'll just have to take your chances, I guess. We won't leave until about six o'clock. Barstow police said they were going to pick up Caleb Leffurgy at around eight. Until then, we can use the time to get all of the evidence out of storage and ready for transfer to San Bernardino County. We'll add anything we get from Hodges in the meantime. Anything that's processed after can be transferred over later."

Sara nodded. She leaned forward in her seat and got caught in Grissom's eyes. He was watching her with a soft look. "Did you get a decent rest?"

Nodding softly, Sara gave him a small smile. "Yeah."

Grissom nodded. "Good."

They sat there for a moment, holding each other's gaze and enjoying the quiet moment. Eventually, Grissom cleared his throat. "I guess we should get at it, then."

Sara bit her lip and stood. "Yeah, I guess so."


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

When six o'clock rolled around, Grissom and Sara were not quite ready to leave. Sorting through and loading the evidence had taken up some time, but filling in the paperwork to transfer all of their evidence had taken even longer. Then, as they were about to leave, they decided to check in with Hodges one last time. That had proved to be a mistake. Hodges did not have anything new, but that didn't stop the trace tech from trying to monopolize all of Grissom's time.

When they finally got out of the lab, it was closer to seven in the morning and close to the end of their shift. Luckily the drive was shorter to Barstow than it was to Caliente. They were in Barstow by nine o'clock. The officers at the Police Department had Caleb Leffurgy in an interview room, waiting for them.

Sara and Grissom had used their time on the drive to coordinate which CSI would do what during the interview. When they sat down across from the young teenager and his lawyer, they were ready.

"Good morning, Mr. Leffurgy. I'm sorry about the loss of your friend," Grissom began.

Staring down at the floor, the young man fidgeted in his seat. "Yeah, well, it's been a rough one."

"I'll bet. From what Dale Jenson's parents told the officer's here, the two of you have been best friends your entire lives."

Caleb Leffurgy looked up. Sad eyes stared out across the table. "Yeah, we were."

"Which is why I'm wondering why you would just leave your friend to die."

"Just a minute," Caleb Leffurgy's lawyer bellowed, interrupting them. "You are out of line. Dale Jenson went missing one evening. His disappearance and death has nothing to do with my client."

Grissom just shook his head. "We have evidence that proves otherwise."

"Then let's hear it."

Grissom glanced over at Sara. She slid Caleb Leffurgy's class ring across the table to him. "We recovered your ring from the cement that came from the railcar where Dale's body was discovered."

Caleb Leffurgy frowned. "That…that isn't mine."

Sara arched a brow. "Are you sure? We know it's not Dale's. His parents found his in his room. We also know that you ordered a replacement ring."

"I misplaced my ring. Probably left mine at Dale's place. That's not mine."

Sara nodded. "Well, that may be so, but I highly doubt it. You could have left your ring at Dale Jenson's, not knowing where you left it and ordered a replacement. Dale Jenson could have been wearing his own ring when he died inside that railcar; DNA will tell us, but the thing is, Caleb, even if in all unlikelihood that was the case, you were still with him."

Sara paused for a moment to take in Caleb Leffurgy's expression. He looked scared, and sad. "No, I wasn't. I was going to meet Dale before he went missing, sure, but Dale didn't show that night."

Sara shook her head. "You were. We can place you on that railcar." Caleb Leffurgy stared at her across the table. She leaned forward on her elbows. "See, the thing is that when Dale Jenson's parents gave us your name as one of the people Dale was likely going to meet and then your name came up as the only student at Silver Valley High School to order a replacement graduation ring matching the one we found in the railcar Dale Jenson's body was found in, the officers here took your prints. You do understand that we were going to use those, right?"

Caleb Leffurgy pursed his lips, not saying anything. Sara sighed. "We compared your prints to the prints we lifted from the railcar and from the bottles of alcohol you, Dale and another male had been drinking that night. Your prints were a match, not only to the bottles of alcohol, but to the railcar as well." She slid the printout of fingerprint comparisons across the table. She also slid a few photographs across the table. "Your fingerprints weren't the only things you left behind, either. We have shoe impressions hardened in the cement and fragments of the bottles of alcohol you left behind." She slid another sheet across the table, guiding it to the lawyer. "We also have a warrant for your DNA. We're pretty sure we're going to match it to swabs we took off those alcohol bottles and to the butts of cigarettes and joint also left behind in that railcar. And that warrant also covers your shoes, Caleb. We're going to go through every pair you own to see if we can match them to the shoe impressions we found, starting with the pair you're wearing right now."

Caleb Leffurgy's eyes widened. "It's not what you think."

"What I think," Sara pressed, "is that you were up on that railcar, drinking with Dale. So what happened? Did you get into a fight? You smashed his head and sealed him up in the railcar?"

The young man sitting across from Sara began to shake his head slowly. "No. No, it was an accident."

"What happened up on that railcar, Caleb?"

Caleb Leffurgy's lawyer leaned into him and whispered something Sara could not make out. Caleb Leffurgy glanced between his two lawyers and the two CSIs across from him. He shook his head and turned to the two CSIs. "Okay. Alright, but listen, it was an accident. We were up there drinking. The railcars were just sitting at the switch and we thought it would be fun to climb up on top of the cars and party."

"Who is 'we,' Caleb?" Grissom asked.

Caleb Leffurgy shook his head. "We were just shooting the breeze. See around Daggett, you either go into mining, or into the railroad. We were up there talking about what it would be like to work on the line."

"When did you think it would be a good idea to climb inside the railcar?"

The young man shook his head. "I don't know. We just kind of opened up the hatches to take a peek and saw we could stand right on the powder. But, we were drunk and Dale was jumping up and down on the powder. He fell and smashed his head on the way down." Caleb Leffurgy hung his head again. Sara watched as a tear slipped from his eye. "He was bleeding all over the place. We couldn't wake him," he whispered. "He was dead."

"Who else was with you?" Sara asked.

Caleb Leffurgy shook his head again.

Sara leaned across the table. "Look, Caleb, Dale Jenson was your best friend. He didn't die when he smashed his head open. I know you couldn't tell how much blood came out of Dale when he hit his head because the cement absorbed it, but it wasn't enough to kill him. The autopsy showed that Dale died of asphyxiation. He sat in that railcar, bleeding, unconscious and he kept breathing in cement dust until it clogged up his lungs and he couldn't breathe any longer. You left him there to die. Your best friend…"

The young man's eyes shot up again. He stared at Sara with wide, sad eyes and shook his head back and forth as though he didn't believe her. "No. No."

Sara leaned forward even further. "Listen Caleb, we have your prints on the inside of the hatch and on the glass fragments from the bottles of alcohol you were drinking, but your prints don't match any of the prints we took off the latch on the hatch from the half of the railcar that Dale Jensen's body was found in. We did get a set of prints off that latch though, prints matching other prints found on all the same places yours were, so we know that whoever's prints those are, he was with you guys. We know that you didn't open or close that hatch, your prints are everywhere but the latch handle, but somebody closed it. He sealed the lid of that hatch when you left and in the process, sealed Dale inside that railcar. Even if Dale woke up, he couldn't get out. That makes this far more serious than just leaving an unconscious body behind. We have enough to charge you, but do you really want to take the fall for all this?"

Caleb Leffurgy slowly shook his head. "It was an accident. He was my best friend."

"Then tell us what happened, Caleb."

"We panicked. We knew we were not supposed to be up there. Dale hit his head and we couldn't wake him. I tried. I grabbed him and shook him and tried to wake him up. We were drunk."

"Who is 'we,' Caleb?"

Caleb Leffurgy's lawyer whispered something to him and he sighed. "Brian Hawkins, another friend from school. I kept trying to wake up Dale, but Brian was really freaking out. He said that we had to get out of there. I thought Dale was dead…"

"Why didn't you pull his body out of the railcar?"

Caleb Leffurgy shrugged. "Brian said that if we pulled him out, they'll think we had something to do with his death, but if we just left him, they'd think it was an accident and it was an accident."

"So you left him."

Slowly, Caleb Leffurgy nodded. "I panicked. I was drunk and not thinking straight and I panicked. I climbed down and Brian followed me. Brian said that we should tell people that Dale didn't meet up with us that night like he was supposed to, so that's what I told people when the missing person's report came out."

"He was your friend, Caleb. Drinking or not, high or not, you still made the decision to leave him there. That's on you. Brian Hawkins sealed him into that railcar alive, drunk and bleeding out from a small wound in his head. How could you look at his parents and tell them that you didn't even see him that night?"

Caleb Leffurgy looked away. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Sara shook her head sadly and stood up. Grissom followed her out of the interview room. "Bring in Brian Hawkins," he said to an officer, who nodded. After the officer left, Grissom turned back to Sara. "You okay?"

Sara nodded. "Can you do the interview with Brian Hawkins alone, though?"

Grissom gave Sara a soft nod. He gently grasped her shoulder. "Sure."

When Brian Hawkins was brought in, Sara watched through the two-way as Grissom conducted the interview. Unlike Caleb Leffurgy, Brian Hawkins denied being connected to Dale Jenson's death in any way. Grissom kept at it, until the warrant for Brian Hawkins' prints, DNA and shoe impressions came in. When Grissom explained that they were going to match Brian Hawkins' prints to prints from the latch on the hatch, showing that he was the one who sealed Dale Jenson inside, Sara listened as the young man finally caved and gave a full confession, his testimony closely matching that of Caleb Leffurgy's.

"Why did you seal the railcar back up?" Sara heard Grissom ask. It was the mistake that ultimately kept them from ruling the death an accident.

Through the two-way mirror, Sara watched as Brian Hawkins shrugged. "I panicked. It was a nightmare and all I could think about was getting the hell out of there."

Grissom exited the interview room and met up with Sara outside. "Well, that's it, I guess. Are you ready to go?"

Sara nodded. As they made their way out of the station, she glanced over to booking to watch Caleb Leffurgy and Brian Hawkins being taken into custody. "Not really the resolution I was envisioning."

Grissom gave her a soft nod. "It rarely is." He placed his hand on the small of her back. "Come on, let's go home."


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

The shift following their return from Barstow was a busy one. Warrick was off for two days and Greg and Catherine were busy working Catherine's 419 from the shift before, leaving Grissom and Sara to cover anything new that came in.

While Grissom was away on a trick roll, his second of the night, Sara quietly worked a gang related robbery at a liquor store. She spent her evening lifting prints, collecting rounds that the perpetrators had sent off into specialty liqueurs behind the counter and helping Vega take statements from the few witnesses willing to step forward. At the lab, she shuffled between Archie, Mandy, and Bobby Dawson, checking surveillance videos, seeing if Mandy could match any of the prints to gang members entered into I-Afis and checking to see if any of the rounds fired off were a match to other crimes. Losing herself in all the evidence from her new case kept her too busy to think about the last one.

She'd thought about it the afternoon before though, as she lay on her bed after being dropped off at her apartment. Grissom had wanted her to get some rest, but she'd kept returning to the thought of a young man, about to graduate from high school, bleeding and unconscious, sealed up in a railcar full of cement powder and abandoned by his friends. She also hadn't been able to stop thinking about Grissom's tenderness on the drive home, how he'd reach out to touch her every so often, a gentle brush of his hand over her shoulder, a grasp of her own hand, a thumb flitting softly over her wrist.

Finishing up with her case for the morning, Sara packed away the evidence she'd taken in and logged the evidence back into the evidence vault. She moved to the locker room, changing her shoes and grabbing her jacket. Feeling a presence at the door, she looked up.

Greg came in. "Good, you're still here. I wanted to catch you before you left."

Sara turned and leaned back against her locker, crossing her arms. "What's up?"

"Brass wanted me to relay a message to you. The railway emptied out that second half of your railcar early this morning, over at the disposal site. There was nothing inside."

Sara nodded. She was sure that there wouldn't be. Still, it was a relief to hear. Her part in that case was over. Barstow police had officially taken over and were finishing off with the rest of the case. The two young men who'd left Dale Jenson to die in that railcar were to be charged by the San Bernardino County Courts. She and Grissom had handed over all of their evidence and the only thing left to do was to return to California to testify if the case ever reached a courtroom. She doubted it would. Both young men had already admitted guilt and seemed ready to look for a plea rather than take their case to court. "Thanks Greg," she said, giving him a small smile.

Greg nodded. He ran a hand through his hair. "No problem. So, I guess I'll see you later tonight?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I'll probably be in a little early to check on my results."

"Me too. Have a good day and I'll see you tonight, then."

Sara smiled. "Bye Greg." She turned back to her locker as Greg turned to go. "Oh, hey Grissom," she heard him say as he departed. Sara's eyes shot back around. Grissom gave Greg a short nod, watching him leave. When Grissom turned back to her, he stilled, looking at her with slight apprehension. He remained in the doorway for a long moment, gazing at her.

Sara watched as his chest rose and fell with one deep breath. His eyes flitted shut and then open. She waited.

Grissom took a small step inside the doorway. He tilted his head slightly to the side. "I was wondering if you would like to come over later," he intoned softly.

Sara felt herself still for a moment. Then she smiled, closing her locker. "I would love to."

Grissom's chest fell as a large breath made its way out past his lips. "In an hour or so?"

Sara nodded. "An hour sounds great."

"Good." Grissom let out another breath. "So, I'll see you then?"

Brushing by him, Sara looked at him and grinned. "I'll see you then."

An hour later, she stood on his front step, staring at the door. For some reason, she was in no hurry to be inside. It was one of those moments when she knew that the course of her life was about to change. This was what she wanted, what she'd always wanted. The direction of her life was finally going the way she'd always wanted it to go. Behind that door lie everything she'd ever longed for. Slowly, nervously, she lifted her hand and knocked. On the other side of the door she could hear a pair of feet shuffling closer. Then, the door opened and Grissom stepped slightly to the side to let her in.

_Fin_


End file.
